My Dad Remembered on Father's Day
“That’s done. Let’s go say good-bye too your mother.”
“We’re going over along Vincent Street today.” Dad gave my mother a peck on the cheek. “Lots of old orange groves over that way.” He picked up the sack lunches as he passed the kitchen counter.
“O.K.” she responded. She was sitting at the table with her cup of coffee and first cigarette of the day. I don’t know where my sister Patty was, perhaps in bed yet, with my sister Monica in her crib, with a bottle. My mother handled the billing, if there was any, and made phone calls to set up business for my Dad two days in advance. When there was a long period of rain or wind, he had no work, and sat around the house reading the papers, and my mother would grow more irritable every day. She acted like we didn’t have enough, but I never lacked for food or clothes or missed school. I didn’t understand her attitude at all.
I followed my Dad back out to the truck, and he opened the door for me to climb in before him. Steps up required some climbing on my part, but I made it, and settled in beside him. He put our lunches on the seat between us. Then he pushed his work hat back from his brow and took and let out a deep breath.
Dad was not a talkative person at home but he smiled at me now. He leaned forward and started the engine. It rumbled to life, metal grating on metal in a noisy way, which sometimes didn’t happen. Then my Dad would be home all day, leaning into the stomach of that truck, or sliding under it, greasy hands reaching for just the right tool. Sometimes it was me that was fetching them for him since I was the oldest kid around.
Today was sunny and bright and smelled of Spring, but just a little too early for the orange blossom fragrance that would fill the air in a week or two. This was the window of time for spraying the trees to prevent aphis from destroying the crops in local back yards. Some owners cared enough about their coming oranges to have them sprayed, and others didn’t. I hunkered up close to the front window. Dad backed carefully down our long driveway, leaving behind us but in front of me, our small house with the big elm tree in the yard that didn’t let the grass grow under it. Dad and my uncle had added two bedrooms to one end.
“We’re off!” Dad drove with his window open, one elbow draped out side, waving to the neighbors and always smiling. We passed the tall palm trees lining the right side of the road, and the houses of old retired people who lived there on big lots, taking a little profit from their chickens and rabbits and now and then a pig or a calf that would be slaughtered: the Carsons, the Winslows, the Scotts, and the Pihls. They grew flowers and harvested vegetables in season that they shared with us. The sign on the truck door said “SeLegue Spray Service” with the logo of a cute smiling skunk who appeared to be aiming his tail at the viewer. We had a box of plastic thermometers with the same logo and our phone number on it to hand out to customers too.
We rumbled down Walnut Street, over the railroad tracks, up Garvey Avenue, turned right on Pacific Avenue, and into the neighbourhoods of West Covina, with old orange groves and walnut groves, now interspersed with new houses built right after WWII.
“This is a good street. I will pay you five cents for each tree you line up for me to spray. Tell them I will be along in a few minutes, OK?” Dad smiled again. “Go on now.” I climbed down from the passenger side. This would be a great deal for me at ten years old. I walked along the street, turning up the walks or driveways to knock on the door. It being Saturday, most people were at home.
“My Dad is SeLegue Spray Service. He’s coming along this street pretty soon, spraying trees against aphis for $1 each. Would you like him to stop here?” I stood politely well beyond the screen door in my sweater and shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, thin with lanky hair.
“Yeah, tell him to stop here.” A man or woman answering the door, indistinct in the interior, would respond to me. Or sometimes no one would answer the doorbell or knock, though I could hear the TV. And sometimes they said, “I think not,” and shut the door firmly. I worked one side of the street, and then the other, back to where my Dad was, and told him which houses wanted him to stop there. Each neat street had curbs, tidy houses recently painted, pretty plants and green grass, with only an occasional neglected house. I skipped those houses. These were very nice neighbourhoods. I didn’t go to another block until Dad was close to done with that one, so there was some waiting time, when I sat in the truck and read.
The truck had slippery seats, cold to my thighs until the day warmed up. It smelled of oil, gasoline, and chemicals like Malathion and DDT, and a dusting of yellow powder on the dash and the floor. I just waited.
My Dad visited with every person who came out to watch, while he shot a stream of light yellow water high into the air, as he walked around the trees, one at a time. For a little more, he told them, he would hit the bushes around the house too, and did they want that? He held the powerful compressor nozzle under his left arm, aiming with care, shutting if off as soon as he was done with a tree while he moved to the next. If there was any distance between the houses, he manually rolled up the hose with a crank before moving the truck.
The homeowner stood by, ready to pay, and sometimes to talk. My Dad would laugh and exchange chat about the weather or politics or religion. Sometimes people would offer him a cup of coffee, and he would go inside, and that would take a really long time. Sometimes I got cookies.
Eventually he would stop long enough for us to eat the lunches mother packed, as we sat in the truck. He had a thermos of coffee, and I had one of milk. Mother included her latest home-made cookies too, which I didn’t think were as good as “store bought”, even if other people thought they were better.
The day was lovely out, warm and good smelling. We ate in such silence so the crunching of a paper sack was a loud sound.
“Get out the map and show me where we are,” my Dad directed. I unfolded the crinkly large paper map, laying it on the seat with north at the up end, and south towards me. Our house was marked, so I started there and traced the path I knew we had taken to where we are now, glanced up to the street sign on the corner, and then focused on the map.
“I think we are right here,” I said as I looked up at him. He smiled.
“Right you are. And now we are heading over to here,” where he pointed with a fat oil stained forefinger. “Ready?”
So that day flew by in a measured and careful way as we worked that part of town. I only got to do this on Saturdays, so it was never a burden to me. I ended up with a couple of dollars to tuck into my drawer until something would take my fancy, and I would spend it. Probably candy bars.
Eventually we moved into one of those neat houses on Leland Avenue, a broad street with curbs where all the houses were tidy and no one kept chickens or rabbits.
I always earned my own spending money, moving on to babysitting at age twelve, housework at 16, Sears store clerk at 18, personal secretary at 21, and teacher at 22. I paid my own expenses not covered by scholarships during college. I enjoy working and meeting the public still.
The chemicals eventually caused cancer that killed my Dad at age 52. A thousand people came to his funeral, and for three years after people called to ask for him, and were sad to hear that he had died. Every other man who worked in that field in his time, all his old competitors, also died before their time, of cancer. Such chemical use is severely restricted now, and cancer can be cured, but not in those days.
posted by MJS at 7:53 AM
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