I first started work when I was nine years old. My Dad cut off my 25 cents per week allowance and told me I had to start working for a living. He offered me a job paying 50 cents per week to sweep and clean up his office adjacent to our machine shop, which was next door to our house on Dixie Highway. The job had to be done every Saturday morning.

Dad also had a long time African-American employee named Roosevelt LeGreer who swept up the rest of our shop. Roosevelt and I were good friends, but I always felt funny when he would call me “Mr. David”. Dad liked him, too. He even gave him his own water fountain. There was a little sign above that fountain that said “colored”. I tried it out one day but I couldn’t tell any difference in the taste from the water in the other water fountain, and it didn’t seem to have any color to it either. When I asked my Dad about it, he seemed to get a little embarrassed. The next day the sign was down, the fountain was gone, and Roosevelt had to drink from the same fountain as everyone else.

When I reached ten years old Dad was still only paying me 50 cents per week. I wanted to make more money. I asked Dad how could I make more money. I understood him to say something to the effect that to make more money you had to do more work, and suggested I talk to Roosevelt. Roosevelt suggested I take over the part of his job, which included cleaning up the metal shavings falling to the floor from the lathe cuts. It was hard work using a shovel, a broom and a wheelbarrow. I worked hard the first Saturday, filling up the wheelbarrow and dumping the shavings in the scrap yard area behind the shop. When I finished, I went to Dad expecting to get at least 75 cents. Dad grinned and suggested I go talk to Roosevelt, “because he hired you.”

When I asked Roosevelt for my money, he just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t have any money. Then I heard the other workers laughing, including my Dad. They thought it was funny, and I was the butt of the joke. However, at ten years old I didn’t think it was funny. So I took the wheelbarrow back out to the scrap yard and loaded all the shavings back into it. I rolled the wheelbarrow back through the shop right to my Dad’s office. My Dad had already gone back inside. I dumped the whole wheelbarrow load of steel shavings out right in front of my Dad’s office door as the workers continued to laugh. I scooted out the side door toward our house to get my fishing pole when I heard my Dad come out of his office and shout; “You’re fired!”

I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew I wasn’t going to work for him or anyone else and not get paid. So I rode my bike down to Pop’s Fish Market, which at the time was on Dixie Highway about a block south of Hillsboro Avenue. I went in to speak to Pop. A kindly older man, who generally wore a cap, he knew me well. I asked him how much he would pay me if I caught fish for him. He said he would advance me bait on credit and pay me 5 cents a pound for mullet and junk fish, and 10 cents a pound for snapper or snook (which were legal to catch at the time).

So I went to work for Pop. I went back home and got my cast net, my gig, and two more rods and reels. I set up on the Dixie Highway Bridge going over the Hillsboro Canal and started fishing. By five o’clock that afternoon I had caught twelve mullet with my cast net, eight mangrove snappers with my rods and reels, and gigged a fifteen-pound snook. I put them all in my wagon and rushed back to Pop’s. He weighed everything and paid me $2.80 after taking out for the bait.

Back home in time for supper I proudly displayed the money from my afternoon’s “work”. Mother was proud and Dad seemed impressed. He apologized for teasing me at the shop and told me I could have my job back and he’d pay me 75 cents. I promptly declined and told him, “Why would I work for you for 75 cents on Saturday when I can make $2.80 fishing?” Dad just smiled and seemed to agree. So the next Saturday I started fishing early. I fished all day and only caught two little snappers and three mullet. Pop paid me 30 cents after deducting for bait. The same thing happened the next Saturday. Fishing was bad for some reason. Maybe the moon wasn’t right? Anyway I decided by the next Saturday that the assured 75 cents from Dad for a couple hours work in the shade was a lot better than fishing all day in the sun for 30 cents. Dad agreed to hire me back, and the rest is history.

David Eller

Publisher

7-24-08