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Soil Pipe Workers

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"This is a ten-room house. Yes, I own it , but I don't own no car; they cost too much."

From where I sat on the comfortable living room sofa, I could see into the kitchen. There, everything was clean, and modern. "My father and mother left Ohio with me when I was seven years old" he continued. "They were poor. They stopped in Missouri and my mother died there. When I was eight years old my father came to Anniston and died here that year. I was left alone from that time on, to take care of myself and to make a living for myself. I lived with first one person and then the other.

"I worked hard and earned my own way. I can remember wearing old clothes the folks would give me, and painfully recall one pair of shoes that were too little for me and that rubbed bad blisters on my feet. But I always got along, and I will tell you one thing; no one ever took advantage of me; folks always treated me nice. "I never went to school a day in my life."

"Do you think an education pays?" I asked.

"Yes, I know it does," he replied. "A man can't hardly get along without one these days. If I should get without a job now without an education, and at my age, I couldn't get one nowhere. It takes an education to get on these days. In fact, I wouldn't have no job, old as I am anyway, if it weren't for 'Tobe' Hamilton, my boss, and he is the best boss to work for in the world. I am now sixty-nine years old, and been workin' in the Pipe shops for forty-six years. I guess I am the oldest pipe shop worker in Anniston; maybe in the world. Well, Tobe says I am the oldest pipe shop worker in the world, and he ought to know."

"What do you think is the average number of years a man works in the pipe shops" I interrogated.

"About thirty-six years, I would say." he answered.

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