The Job I Did Not Want And the One I Turned Down

With unemployment high and persistent, many out-of-work individuals have found themselves applying for and accepting jobs they once would never have considered.  Any job is better than being out of work, although I found myself once applying for a job while hoping I would not be hired.

It was the summer between my sophomore and junior years at LSU; that would be 1948 I think, a long time ago.  My dad and brother had planted several acres of cotton for me, and I would keep it cultivated. I chopped it, plowed it, and hoed it and later picked it.  This did not keep me totally occupied so my brother, Jesse, and I would leave early in the morning, walk to the Cotton Valley road, and hitch hike to Springhill.  There we would  join a group, mostly men from 18 to the 20's, at International Paper Co. and apply for a summer job.  After not being hired, we would hitch hike back home and go to work on the farm  We were fortunate most mornings to catch rides to the paper mill, but on the way back we often had to take rides that went only a few miles, forcing us to hitch hike again. Once a ride dropped us off where a flooring mill was nearby.  The mill sawed hardwoods, mostly oaks, into wide planks and then sawed the planks into narrow and short pieces which were then planed, the finished product being high quality flooring.  If you have never been to a sawmill, you cannot imagine the screeching, screaming noise that assaults the eardrums.  The manager and owner said he could not use any more workers at present, and I was glad that I didn't have to make a choice, refuse the job or suffer the hard work and noise.  A friend, Perry Mullen of Garan, used to tell community leaders that thereremained  two jobs that were hard  work-- working at a sawmill and at a cut-and-sew plant..  It wasn't in my nature to turn down a job but I was to do just that.

A week or two later I was called into the offices of the paper mill.  There I was offered a permanent job, with no limit on how high I might go  in the company.  They asked me to commit to the job and not plan on returning to college.  I thought about it but regretfully turned it down; I had begun college and wanted to finigh what I had started.   By the way, my starting salary was to be $80 a week. Not much, you say, but a year and a half  later, armed with a degree in journalism, I went to work at  a newspaper for a starting salary of $50 a week.

That summer of 1948 I was also a member of the 52-20 club. A provision of the GI Bill was that vets could get up to 52 weeks of unemployment pay while seeking a job.  Once a week I would hitch hike to Minden, visit the unemployment office, ask if any jobs were available, and leave with a $20 check.The next summer I stayed in school in order to finish at mid-term and go to work.