Granny D’s American Century

10 | The Main Course of Life

The Main Course of Life In the days to come, Jim would receive a letter from his old professor , who had just then been appointed to a considerable position in the new Roosevelt administration. It was a clear invitation to come to Washington so that the professor might introduce him around. Jim almost did not show me the letter. When he did, and when I asked why he was not excited, he choked up a little as he explained: “I have nothing to wear, Dottie, nothing.” His good clothes had been ruined during his hard work pushing the book carts around Boston . He now had old farm clothes, which were good enough for his work with the doctor and around the horses and the skating rinks, but not for the marble offices of Washington, d.c. “Can you imagine how embarrassed old Thorp would be if I showed up like this? It would humiliate him, and me.” He sat on the bed and fell back to look up at the roof planks above us. It seemed like a trivial problem to me—it seemed he was looking for an excuse to not make the big move that he had surely earned and that we needed. If all he required was a new suit to open the door to a new life for us, well, I just didn’t think such a thing should be the deciding factor. I knew our own reserves were quite slim. A decent suit in 1933 cost about twenty-five dollars, with another four dollars for dress shoes and maybe that much again for a decent hat, which was expected. For under thirty-five dollars, then, plus thirty-eight dollars for the round-trip train ticket to Washington, and three or four dollars per night for a hotel, we should be on our way up. I could pack sandwiches for him and save him meal costs. “Impossible,” he said. “Add it all up!” He had talked to his mother. She reminded him that the Haddocks were not in the habit of borrowing money, and that the household certainly didn’t have that much to spare. Every dollar expected was accounted for, and would provide a family meal or something just as vital. This trip would be a good hundred dollars, she had calculated. 10 88 granny d’s american century She suggested he have the professor write again if there was a job certain . Then he could go with a one-way ticket, and send for Elizabeth and me when he had his first check in hand. “I can’t write him and say that,” Jim said. “Besides, I don’t know if we’re right for Washington. That’s a big rat race there. I don’t know if you would like it, either, and now we have the baby.” He was falling, and I couldn’t seem to catch him. “I think I have a chance with the electric company here.” All his door-to-door collecting for the doctor had put him in regular contact with a meter reader who said he might help Jim get a job like that. I couldn’t believe it. He was a fallen man, beaten by fear itself. I did not have a strong enough net to save him. The letter from Professor Thorp went unanswered, which was so unlike Jim. The fact is, an economic depression is an illness that becomes a personal depression. It becomes difficult to see a happy outcome, and so people give up. I’m not saying Jim gave up. He gave up on his original dreams, but not on life. But, in these little ways, a dollar at a time, we fell into a very modest life, and the days became years. Jim did, in fact, get a job reading meters. The electric utility transferred him to Nashua, near New Hampshire’s border with Massachusetts . Our son, Jim Jr., was born there. We lived in one unit of a building that had been a nursing home of some kind. I talked the owner into letting me use the fallow courtyard for a very large vegetable garden, which soon fed several of the families who lived there and kept a large common room stocked with hundreds of sealed jars of food for all seasons. We made friends and began to ski together with other couples. Very regularly, Jim visited a pretty young woman to talk politics and other things that perhaps I...