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balto
839 Posts |
 Posted - 10/01/2011 : 09:48:24
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Just some old short story from the 50's
His Own Built-In Social Security
Booton Herndon
Do you think you work too hard? That you haven’t time to do all the things you want to do? Or that the Government ought to give you a little more security? If so, you ought to meet Bill Stoneburner.
Bill is skinny, tall, 40 years old and lives in my home town, Charlottesville, Va. Bill not only gets more work done but has more fun than anyone I know. Further, he and his wife have solved family problems that would send most people running helplessly to a psychiatrist – or to Reno.
Last summer my house needed painting. Bill gave a reasonable estimate so I hired him. But he didn’t limit his job to painting. He fixed a screen door, took a stuck window apart and made it work, drove my wife into town shopping one day when I had the car, and answered approximately 100,000 questions put to him by my nine year old son – none of which showed up on the bill. When it was all over, as a matter of fact, he apologized for taking so long.
“I had two other inside jobs I was finishing up at night,” he said. “And we’ve had some fires, too.”
Bill’s real job, you see, is with the fire department, where he is on duty 24 hours alternate days. He paints on his days off. His salary as a fireman is about $200 (1952) a month, which, with a wife and two children, doesn’t go far.
“Why don’t you quit the fire department and be a paint contractor?” my wife asked him one day.
Bill Squirmed a little, “Somebody’s got to put out the fires,” he answered. “I don’t want my own house to burn down.”
“Then you ought to ask for more money from the city,” said my wife, who comes from New York.
“Why, gosh,” Bill said, scratching his head, “I don’t think the city’s got any more money. Taxes are high enough as they are.”
My wife went back into the house and sat down. “That man’s crazy,” she announced.
Bill’s wife, Bertha, a frail-looking creature – who actually has the stamina of a marathon runner – is an expert seamstress. Take her a clipping from a fashion magazine and, without a pattern, she’ll make a garment just like it. Her price, with your material, is $10 for a dress, $20 for a tailored suit. “Where’d you say she lives?” my wife asked, reaching for the keys to the car.
So all right, I said to myself, the Stoneburners work like horses. But do they ever have any fun? I got my answer the next Sunday, on the Shenandoah River. A friend and I were out in my canoe. When our wives and children pleaded to come along we told them we wanted to do some serious fishing. Our fancy equipment inpressed the daylights out of everybody but the fish.
And then down the river in a homemade boat loaded down with Bertha, the two kids and a dog, came Bill Stoneburner. They were using everything from a fly rod to a pole, but they were dragging in fish. Bill is actually an ardent fly fisherman who hasn’t missed the opening day of the trout season for years, but he doesn’t let it interfere with having a good time with his family.
We finally did get some fish that day. Bill gave them to us.
How would you be at living with your in-laws? Bill and bertha live in a 12 room house populated by ten persons of four generations – not to mention five dogs, a cat and a bird. There are Bill’s grandfather; his parents; his unmarried brother; bill, Bertha and their two children, Billy and Cookie. Bill’s sister is divorced and her two kids live there too.
That isn’t all. A construction engineer and his wife were here on a job last year, and their son fitted in just right at the high school. When his parents moved on he stayed. Bill built him a little shack in the woods back of the Stoneburner house. He sleeps there and takes his meals with the family. “There’s always room for one more in tha family like this,” Bill says.
Once Bill and Bertha had a home of their own, a little dream house, just right for them because Bill designed and built it himself. But he sold it to pay the mortgage on his parents’ home, so they would have no worries in their old age. I know few husbands who would have made that sacrifice and no wives who would have let them.
As parents, Bill and Bertha have had two widely diverse problems. The older child, billy, suffered an attack of polio which impairs his walk.
Did you ever see parents get impatient with their children when they lag behind, walking? Well, I’ll never forget the first time I saw Bill Stoneburner and Billy, together. It was at a baseball game. The stands were located a long way from the entrance, and the the eighth inning I saw Bill, Bertha and Billy get up and start the long walk early, so that billy could beat the crowd.
It was a pretty exciting inning, but I found myself devoting all my attention to the little family making its way around the field. That night energetic bill Stoneburner was the darnedest slowpoke I ever saw. He stopped to talk, to pick up a blade of grass, to brush imaginary burs off his pant leg. Billy all the time was walking at his own gait. Never once did he have to hurry to catch up. As a matter of fact, when they were nearing the gate, I saw Billy look back impatiently. I guess it was then that I was proudest of all that I know Bill Stoneburner.
Cookie, the Stoneburner’s nine year old daughter, is talented – and talented children can be as much of a problem as crippled ones; they can be spoiled brats. Says Alice Amory, an experienced dancing teacher, “I’ve seen a lot of budding dancers, but cooke has more talent than any child I have ever seen. She can be as great as she wants to be”.
Despite this, cookie is one of the sweetest, best-mannered children you ever saw – a nice tribute to the way Bill and Bertha Stoneburner have kept their feet on the ground. But how about the expense of developing her talent?
Alice says, “Cooke wouldn’t have to pay me a cent, I consider it my duty to develop such talent. But Bertha and Bill won’t let me give her one minute of instruction free. They insist on working for it.”
“Bill painted our house,” Alice’s husband, O. T. Amory, said to me. “Look at these interiors. Perfect. Three coats,”
“Bertha makes my clothes,” Alice said, “and bill laid this tile in the studio. We give our recitals at the high school auditorium, so Bill measured the stage, then marked off the exact dimensions here on the studio floor. It was his idea. Now when a student steps over the line, I say, “Oh, you just fell in the orchestra.’ It’s wonderful!”
“I had to do something for bill,” said O. T., “so I gave him the lumber that had been left over when the house was finished. All I asked was that he leave inough for a couple of benches for the studio. He took it all – which I thought was unlike Bill. A week later he brought us a beautiful bench, all sanded, varnished and waxed, ‘I’ll bring you the other one next week,’ he said. And he did.” O. T. shook his head. “What can you do with a guy like that?”
In the course of any painting job bill does lots of extra touching up and patching that he doesn’t charge for. People come to him, he figures, because they want a good job, but can’t afford a contractor. If he charged for every little thing his customers might not be able to afford him. “What I really want,” he says, “is for people to like my work. I guess I’m selfish, really. I want appreciation.”
Bertha feels the same way. She makes costumes for the dance recitals, for instance. Five dollars is her top for a costume, even if it takes her three working days. “I couldn’t charge any more,” she says, “The children’s mothers couldn’t afford it and they’d try to do it themselves and the costumes would look treeible, especially beside Cookie’s. Then they’d feel bad. I want them to feel good.
How many mothers do you know who knock themselves out so other people’s daughters will look as well as their own?
The other night bill, Bertha and I were lounging in Bill’s hobby shop, each of us holding a sleeping dog. Bill had been painting eight or ten hours a day half that week, and laying tile at night, and there’d been a few fires, too.
“I guess I’m lazy,” Bill said, “but I just don’t like to work in a garden. Of course,” he added after a pause, “things like corn and tomatoes and pole beans – they don’t take much time. We plant some every spring. Outside of a few things like that, though, when it comes to gardening I guess I’m just plain lazy.”
With rather poor humor, I asked Bill what he did in his spare time, I never saw a man come alert so fast in my life. He showed me, with great enthusiasm, what he is doing in his spare time: he is making a four poster bed, every post reede and carved by hand. He got the walnut at a sawmill way out in the country, and had it kiln – dried. Each leg has taken about 25 hours’ work (in his spare time); soon he will be able to put the sides on. When that is done he will sand it four times, water stain it, sand it again, apply sealer, sand it lightly, then apply seven coats of lacquer. Then he will polish it with pumice and oil, and wax it.
“Only trouble is,” Bill said, “the room Bertha and I have isn’t big enough to take the bed. So, after I finish the bed, I’ve got to tear out the wall between our room and the next one and then replaster and paper it. Then we’ll have a room to put the bed in.”
It was 11 o’clock. Bill had been working since seven and had to be at the firehouse early the next morning. Yet there he was, talking about what he was going to do in his spare time. Bertha gently went over to him and brushed his shirt collar. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. It was there in her eyes for all the world to see.
And so I left them and went home to my own bed, the one I bought from the furniture store.
As I said, if you ever feel that you work too hard, or that you haven’t enough time to do all the things you want to do, or if you think the Government ought to give you a little more social security, come on down to Charlottesville. I’ll introduce you to Bill Stoneburner. He’ll be glad to talk to you. He’s got plenty of time.
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 10:36:48
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Thank you for sharing this story with us, Balto. It has given me food for thought over the last 24 hours. Alas, I haven't come across many Bill Stoneburners in my life. I have, however, tried my best to contribute to society. I know you have mentioned in other postings about being isolated and needing to get out there and help others. I agree with you. Years ago when suffering from depression I forced myself to get out into the world to prevent myself from falling deeper into the cesspit. It did the trick. I now work professionally with disadvantaged groups and I feel privileged to do this job.
I look forward to reading other people's views on this story. |
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balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 17:39:39
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I'm glad you like this short story. I'm not sure what other people would get out of it, for me it said you really don't need much money to have a good, meaningful, wonderful life full of love and contentment.
This morning a friend forward me a posting from a photographer, it said:
"One time I was talking to a very rich man. His bank account was huge. He knew it. He asked me about my finances. I told him I was broke. He asked me what I've done with my life.
I told him:
I've seen the Taj Mahal.
I've walked the steps of Lawrence of Arabia through Wadi Rum.
I've seen Petra, the Pyramids of Giza, the temples of Angkor.
Walked the plains of Bagan.
I've been through the great mosques of Istanbul. Seen the gingerbread city of Sana'a.
Sat with Sadhu's on the ghats of the Ganges. Watched bodies burn on the funeral pyres of Pashupatinath.
I've scaled the Himalayas.
Crossed the Sahara ...north to south, than east to west, than back up south to north.
I've stayed with Bedu in the Rub al-Khali. Had tea with Tuareg outside of Timbuktu.
Seen slaves bought and sold.
Men whipped for nothing more than being alive. Been through and seen the true faces of war in Afghanistan. Been scared by the child soldiers of Sudan. Walked over the bones of the not so fortunate in Mut.
Went down the Nile ...all the way.
Up the Niger by piroque.
Seen the riches of the church in St. Marks Square.
Sat on the throne of Genghis Khan.
Walked through the markets of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Cairo, Addis Ababa, New York, Seattle, London, Madrid...
Christmas at Lalibela.
The Stella fields of Axum.
The great castles of Gonder.
Walked the Bandiagara Escarpment.
The monday market at Djenne.
Swam through the humanity of western Africa. ...Lagos, Jos, Cotonou, Lome, Accra.
Swam with Hippos, slept with warthogs, fought with baboons...
I asked him what he has done. He said he saved his money...never left the states. Too dangerous."
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Money is not everything. We need a purpose, we need to see the world so we can see ourself. How do you know good food taste good if you have never it bad food? We see other's lives help us know how good or bad our live is and what we should do to improve it.
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His own built in social security
