Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Sharing what we have

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1999 | 9:12 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

Twenty men stand watching the muckers.

Stabbing the sides of the ditch

Where clay gleams yellow,

Driving the blades of their shovels

Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains

Wiping sweat off their faces

With red bandanas

The muckers work on ... pausing ... to pull

Their boots out of suckholes where they slosh.

Of the 20 looking on

Ten murmur, "O, it's a hell of a job,"

Ten others, "Jesus, I wish I had the job."

-- "Muckers" by the people's poet, Carl Sandburg

ALTHOUGH this poem was written prior to the Great Depression it reminds me of the mentality of those days. For every man digging, chopping and lifting there were a dozen or more men sitting on the bank wishing they had the job and hoping one of the workers would falter so he could be replaced.

Millions of Americans can recall those days when women, lucky enough to have a job serving, cooking, washing bed pans or cleaning houses, would work 10 and 12 hours for the dollar or 50 cents paid at the end of a day. Fortunate men would work outside in the cold, heat, rain and snow with a pick, shovel, axe or saw for an equal amount of pay. They were the people who knew they had "a hell of a job" and were happy to have it.

It reminds me of the days when my father couldn't find a job in the mines or on a construction project. We moved to a subsistence farm and after four years the bank reclaimed it because my father couldn't meet the payments. That's when we found another rundown farm with more sand than rich soil which, after six years of sweat and hard work, produced good crops of cucumbers, melons, corn, tomatoes, potatoes and hay. During those same years we developed a large number of milk-producing cows and had more than enough wild game and fish to eat. One pair of shoes and a Levi jacket were enough to last through a winter. We didn't have cash, but neither did anybody else in Wisconsin's back country. It was a lot tougher in the cities as Henry Allen recently recalled in the Washington Post.

"Definitely, you read in the papers how in Chicago unemployment hit 50 percent, and men were fighting over a barrel of garbage; or in the Dust Bowl, farmers saying they'll lynch judges who foreclose on their property. That kind of thing. It's terrible.

"But most places you don't see it. Roosevelt can say: 'I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.' That leaves two-thirds where you don't see the hobo jungles, people lined up for government cheese.

"You feel what isn't there: It's like on Sunday afternoon, the quiet. You don't hear carpenters driving nails, you don't hear rivet hammers going in the city.

"Fewer cars in town, just the stoplights rocking in the wind. You don't hear as many whistles: factory, railroad. You don't hear as many babies crying. People are afraid to have them.

"Down the block there's a man you don't see outside his house on workdays. He doesn't want the neighbors to know he's out of work again. Smoking cigarettes, looking out the window, waiting for 'Amos 'n' Andy' to come on the radio. ...

"People write songs about tramps -- 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' -- but you don't see them unless they come to your back door; people say they make a chalk mark on your fence if you're good for a handout. You've never found the mark but they keep coming. You wonder how they survive.

"One guy's feet are coming out of his shoes but he's got a new tweed overcoat.

"You say: 'Glad to see you got a warm coat.'

"He says: 'I got it raking leaves for an undertaker. They're good for clothes.' ... "

This is Thanksgiving week in 1999 when we continue down the road of prosperity that after several years appears to have no end. That's unless you are one of several hundred former employees of the Maxim Hotel who have been cast aside by thoughtless and selfish owners.

When sitting down to eat our turkey and all of the other delicious foods and goodies we should be thankful. As Americans we should take time to also think about the large number of disabled, elderly and children who aren't partaking of the abundance so many take for granted.

There's still 24 hours remaining for all of us to seek out those who need food and a warm place to sleep. The charitable institutions that deal directly with the poor and homeless in our area are numerous. MASH Village, St. Vincent Shelter, Salvation Army and Catholic Workers are but a few that can use additional food and funds as they reach out to help.

Maybe you know some elderly or ill person or large family that needs a helping hand. There's really no justification for any American to be hungry or cold when so many of us have the opportunity to live the good life.