Valor: The American Odyssey of Roy Dominguez

Four: Work and College

Gary Martin, Jerry Ezell, and Roy Dominguez took upper division classes from me. Wherever you set the bar, they got over it. If you pushed them a bit, that was fine. They didn’t whine and got it done. They had tenacity and stamina and were intelligent, highly motivated, and dead serious about improving their lives. Barry Johnston, Steel Shavings 35 (“Educating the Calumet Region”) Chief Andy Lazar made you realize that mistakes happened but that one should learn from them. He’d tell me that I should set my goal higher than being an I.U. Northwest officer. He emphasized getting an education and said that the pen was a more powerful weapon than a gun. Donald Young, Steel Shavings 35 (“Educating the Calumet Region”) 52 53 One winter day my dad shocked me at the breakfast table by calling me a “dumb Mexican.” He would never have uttered such an insulting remark to anybody else. Nor would he have tolerated anyone else saying that to any of us. He went on to say, “You think because you have a few nickels in your pocket that you’re big stuff. What you ought to do is get an education and make something of yourself.” Mom got mad and said, “Why are you talking to him that way?” He told her I was smart enough to go to college. He had never been so frank with me. Millwright Apprentice Through the Gary Career Center, where I had gone for half-days during my senior year at Gary Lew Wallace High School, I found my first fulltime job in June of 1972, at Ortman-Miller Machine Company, which manufactured hydraulic cylinders. It was located in north Hammond on Goslin Street near Calumet Avenue. I’d commonly be stopped by several long trains each way. It was a terrible commute. I enjoyed being an apprentice in the company’s machine shop, but management didn’t pay well. Therefore, I applied to be an apprentice machinist at Inland Steel, where my dad had worked for two decades. They didn’t have any openings but promised to notify me when they did. In August of 1972, a representative from Inland called, and I made an appointment to take the apprenticeship exam. Dad drove me to the personnel department and waited outside in his car. I passed the test, but the only opening available was for a millwright apprentice. I didn’t Work and College four 54 Valor even know the job duties of a millwright, but the job pay classification was pay grade 11 while for machine apprentice it was only pay grade 6. So I grabbed at the opportunity and took it. After all, it was the only one offered. Dadcouldn’tbelieve my good fortune. He had been working twenty years and had a job pay classification of 10, and here I was an eighteenyear -old kid with a higher pay scale. I said, “Pa, what’s a millwright?” I had no clue. He replied in a moment of humor, “Just take a sledgehammer to work. You’ll be a sledgehammer mechanic.” To this day I still laugh at his definition. He had a good sense of humor. A millwright was a mechanic in the mill, and he knew I had very little mechanical skills. Rightthenandtherehetoldme,“Yououghttogobacktoschoolbecause you’re no mechanic.” He was so right. Since Dad and I were both working days at Inland’s Plant 2, we’d get up at 4:30 am and commute together after Mom lovingly made us breakfast and our lunches. He would drop me off and report to the truck and storage department. When he first got to Inland, he’d have to drive a trucktoChicagoandback,butafterhegainedmoreseniority,hewasable tostayinsidethemill.He’ddriveafueltruckwithinthemill,andahelper would get out and fuel cranes, bulldozers, and other heavy machinery. Fortunately for me, the company provided all the tools I needed. As an apprentice I was a helper and performed on-the-job training. Millwrights might say, “Do this, kid” or “Go to the shop for this.” You’d do the heavy lifting or would be shown how to do something and then expectedtodoit .Youendedupcatchingon.Iwasearninggoodmoneyand eventually purchased a new car, but I gave my mom about a third of my net pay. She demanded that everyone contribute to the family treasury. I never thought anything about it. Nor did my siblings. The morning my dad called me a “dumb...