JIM'S LITTLE BLOG

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Five.

I have lived in several places. When I was single there were a lot of rented rooms for me.

1320 "C" Street, Lincoln, Nebraska. I lived with my Mom's Aunt and her daughter, Mom's cousin. I decided to go to the University of Nebraska too late to get a dorm room. I had a lovely little room looking out over my cousin's garden and alley.

17xx "P" Street. A friend lived her, I moved there in my second year of college. It was close to campus. Each room had two bunk beds and four dressers. Not very nice for us students.

South of town, by the hospital. I don't know the address, that house has been torn down by now. I couldn't take the cramped little room on 17th Street any more.

28xx "P" Street. I found this nice room with a very friendly couple, it was walking distance to Elgin. I did have my Dad's but I walked the mile to work a lot.

xyz South 14th Street. This was my first apartment. Down in the basement, across from the Nebraska State Capital building, I had a lot of rooms. It was furnished too.

I had dropped out of college and was working at Elgin National Watch factory in Lincoln. This was an enjoyable life, single with a care of my own now, but not too rewarding at work.

At Elgin, I started out at $1.10 an hour running a degreaser machine. That job damaged my sense of smell because of the strong fumes emitted by the vat of chemicals used to dissolve the grease.

In a bit I was promoted to set-up man. There weren't any set-up women. My job was to keep an assembly line running smoothly. I had to keep sixteen women happy with their work. I repaired their equipment and kept their trim knives sharp. The trim knives were used to trim burrs off the brass parts where they had been drilled.

I was the youngest set-up man at Elgin. I think having some college helped me get that job. I didn't ask for it, my foreman chose me. It was all in the same department as was the degreaser operator job.

Sometime in my second year at Elgin we had a reduction in force and I got laid off from my set-up job. To keep from being laid off, I bumped a lady on the watch line. My former line had been making parts for proximity fuses for the Navy.

I never could make my quota on that line. The ladies would do my job for me while I was at lunch, that helped some.

I swear there are ladies' jobs, and this was one. I had to drill two holes in brass watch plates. I have no idea what went in those holes, but I was thinking alone the lines of pinions for little gears.

Just in time to save me as an opening for me to have, running automatic screw machines. Automatic screw machines could make screws out of a piece of metal rod. They could also make knobs with knurls on them, like watch winder stems.

I was at that job for almost a year. I spent a lot of money on my 1952 Ford. It got new fancy upholstery and I hopped it up with a built up Mercury engine.

We didn't have drag strips in those days, but did a lot of street racing. The best place was over on the uncompleted Interstate highway.
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My '52 Ford would out run the 1955 Chevy's, even the ones with Power Packs. It would stay even with the 1956s also. No other stock car could beat it.

My Ford was very loud and I kept getting troubled by the cops police over that. Eventually I traded it for a new 1956 Ford Sunliner Convertible. I saw it on the street one day, he was driving with his wife.
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The new buyer of my '52 didn't know it was hopped up, I had put the carburetor back to a stock Ford. He told me it really ran good, and fast, but it's exhausts were very loud.

At my apartment, rent was free. I did have some chores to do for the landlady in exchange in place of my rent. In the fall I was to rake the leaves, in the winter to keep the walks clear and tend the coal furnace. In the spring and summer I was to mow the lawn.

I knew the place was trouble, the landlady had signs all over, like shutting the lights off, setting the furnace differently when I left, and so on. There was at least one sign in every room, most had a lot.

She got after me about raking the leaves. I told her it would be "Monday" because I was working the night shift. That didn't suit her, she wanted those leaves gone for the weekend.

So I said I was just going to leave. The landlady wanted two weeks notice, I told her that to me it was a job and I quite [i.e. take this job and shove it].

About 11xx "D" Street was my next residence was . Here I had a nice room upstairs in a widow lady's home. She rented out her two upstairs rooms.

I don't remember that place very good. Two instances come to mind. The first was the day I got clocked for speeding on 13th Street. I ducked off to a side street before I had to pass the ticketing officer.

I drove around for an hour, then came home. My home was about five blocks from where I got clocked. Wouldn't you know it, I met them on my own street in front of the house.

The officers said they were just giving up finding me and were going back for other speeders. They weren't happy about my running off and added an extra charge to the ticket. Eventually this extra one was dismissed.

My second event was sleeping for 26 or more hours without waking up. A friend and I hitch hiked to Omaha to help sandbag the Missouri River. It was a terrible flood.

I had worked just about steady for 48 hours. We did get a little nap in the YMCA. Most of the work was free, we did work sixteen hours for a contractor, Peter Kiewit. For that sixteen hours we got a nice check.

Eventually I moved for a final time in Lincoln. It was way out past 48th and Vine streets. I was staying with a man and his wife, the man also worked at Elgin.

I had many memories while I lived there. I had my new Ford convertible, I bought a 1941 Chevy play car, was helping a couple of other friends with the 1934 modified stock car racer, started a whole lot more dating, and eventually met my first wife.

That is it for the places I have lived while I was single. The next writing will tell about the places I lived when I was married--maybe the ones when I was single again too.

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