that man is up there with the hoe and the crutch is.." He was used as a landmark.
That is just a little interesting sideline.

But the Chipman-LaCrosse Hosiery Mill was one of these places that was the
mainstay as far as the money that was brought in. Of course, they paid the workers
as little as possible. It was the first place I ever got a job, in fact. When I graduated
from high school it was the middle of the Depression and I went down and was
employed by Chipman-LaCrosse to work in the finishing room. That was the place
where they boxed their product and sent it out. I put labels on boxes. And they
started me off at $8 a week, for which I worked five and a half days--forty-four hours,
for $8. In three months I was supposed to start making $12, which is what everybody
else made. I was pretty happy the way things were; I enjoyed working and it was
kind of interesting work. But lo and behold, [when] the time came and I finally
asked for my raise, they fired me so they could keep from giving it to me. So I was
pretty downcast by that, because getting another job was really a problem in those
days. I thought, "I will just go downtown and go the movies." They had the matinees
in those days. It only cost me 35 cents to go to movies, which was actually pretty stiff
for the kind of money I was making. Of course I had never intended to make a
living working in a hosiery mill. Anyway, I went to the movies. I came out of the
movies and standing in front of it I just thought, "What am I going to do?"

The manager of the other theatre walked by at about that time and said, "Hey,
Ralph!" And I said, "Hey, Jack, how are you?" He said, "What are you doing now?"
I said, "Nothing." He said, "You want a job?" I said, "Yeah! Doing what?" He said,
"Being a doorman down at the state theatre. You are just exactly the right size to
fit the uniform." So I said, "Well, how much does it pay?" He said, "$12." I said,
"You have bought yourself a man." So I had a wonderful time. I went down to the
state theatre. It was a nice looking uniform and I wore it. This was really one of the
most sought-after jobs in town. All my friends came to the movies. Once in a while
I could let one in if they did not happen to have any money. I thoroughly enjoyed
it.

But I had decided a long time before that what I really wanted to do was go into the
navy. I was waiting on the school bus one morning, and it was so darn cold that my
hair froze to my head. And I decided right there that I wanted to do something that
would get me out of this cold weather. So the summer that I was twelve years old,
my cousin came home from the navy. He was a third class yeoman. Jim was a big
handsome fellow; he was very jolly. So I finally said, "Hey Jim, how do you like the
navy?" He said, "Oh, it is all right." I thought that was very unenthusiastic for a man
who had this beautiful white uniform on, had money, [was] happy and travelled all
over the world. I could just envision the jolly sailors lying around on deck on the
battleship saying, "Hey, let's go to Honolulu." Or saying, "Isn't it about time for us
to eat, let's go down and have something to eat." Now, needless to say, I found out
later on that this was very poor thinking on my part. Anyway, I actually had just


- 11 -