Who's That With Charlie?. Charles S. Mechem

Чтение книги онлайн.

      SINCE WE WERE growing up in the depression, my brother, sister, and I were all expected to have a job when we were not in school. When I was old enough to have a “real” job, my dad talked to the County Engineer and got me a summer job with the County Highway Department. Athens County, where Nelsonville is located, was a rural county with many dirt roads that the county was obligated to maintain. The work crew was a group of fellows of all ages and backgrounds. Some of them had worked for the Highway Department for many years; others were guys who were probably just trying to make a living while looking for a better job.

      This was hot, tiring work, but at my age, it took a lot to wear me out. I dug ditches, repaired guardrails, cut brush, cleaned culverts, and did whatever else I was told to do. The older guys were really nice to me, and I honestly enjoyed the work. However, as I think back, I probably enjoyed it largely because I knew it would end in late August, and I would go back to school! By the way, the pay was extravagant—65 cents an hour! But to me at that age and time, it was a fortune.

      I learned two very important lessons during the four summers that I was with the “Highway Boys.” First, as I just mentioned, my work was temporary, and I was young and looking to the future. But most of the guys I worked with were in a very different category. This was their life. This is how they supported themselves and their families. For most of them this was their future. It gave me a new and different perspective on the lives and dreams of what, I suspect, was the vast majority of people at that time.

      The other lesson I learned came from an old guy who was very friendly to me from the very beginning. His name was Emmett, and he had been part of the highway gang for many years. He was an intelligent, pleasant man and very popular with all of us. He and I were working together one day to dig a trench for some pipe. He watched me stabbing furiously at the ground with my shovel and stopped me to give me some advice. He showed me how to shovel slowly and carefully and taught me all the tricks of the trade. He was obviously proud of the fact that he could do something well and that he could pass this knowledge on to someone else. This may seem a trivial incident, but it had a real effect on me both then and now. No matter how menial a task may seem, it can be done well or it can be done badly; it can be done with pride or with resentment; it can be done with total effort or with disdain. I think that lesson applies—or should apply—to any task that anyone ever undertakes. It’s funny how and where you learn important lessons!

      I can’t leave my highway gang experiences without noting my hopelessly unsuccessful attempt to learn to chew tobacco. Most of the guys chewed tobacco partly, I’m sure, for the nicotine fix but also because it kept their mouths moist during the hot, dry, and dusty days that followed one after the other, especially in July and August. I thought it would be “cool” to chew, and I planned to brag about it to my pals. Regrettably, it never happened. Let me tell you that there is an art to chewing tobacco, as surprising as that may seem. The trick is to do it without swallowing any of the tobacco juice that is generated by chewing. This is obviously foul stuff and spoils all the fun! Try as I might I could never master it. I guess this just proves that there is skill required in this ancient habit, and it was a skill that I simply did not possess!*

      I graduated from Nelsonville High School in 1948. There were fifty-two of us in the graduating class. It was truly a wonderful group of kids. We got along wonderfully well together, and I still count many of them among the closest friends I have ever had.

      My mother and dad on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls in 1916.

      Yes, that’s me!

      My dad, grandfather, and uncle in front of the family shoe store.

      My mother and her one-room schoolhouse class. Note the number of bare feet!

      Dad, as President Pro Tem of the Ohio Senate, with Governor Jim Rhodes.

      In spite of a weak link (me), we had a pretty good basketball team. I’m in the first row, second from the right.

      My brother, Bill, my dad, me, my sister, Alice, and her husband, George, on the occasion of my receiving an Honorary Doctorate at Ohio University in 1984.

      The four horsemen we ain’t! I’m number 13—seems fitting.

      CHAPTER III

      Miami University

      MY CHOICE OF a college was not complicated. For financial reasons, I needed to go to a state-supported Ohio college. I really only thought about two—Ohio University and Miami University. I rejected Ohio University, even though it was and is a fine school, because I wanted to get farther away from home (it was only thirteen miles from Nelsonville), but not too far. I had never been to Miami (forty miles north of Cincinnati), but I liked everything I knew about it and the few people I knew who went there as well. So, off I went to Miami in the fall of 1948, and I have never regretted the decision. It marked a major turning point in my life, in more ways than one.

      I knew very few people when I arrived at Miami, and so I was looking forward to meeting my roommate and becoming pals. I just knew that would make it easier for me to adjust and be less homesick. (I knew I was going to be homesick!) So, after unpacking and bidding my folks goodbye, I waited anxiously in my room for my new pal.

      They arrived! Yes, I said they for I was to have not one roommate but two! Not just any two guys. Oh no! These guys were high school buddies from nearby Dayton. They were nice guys and we got along, but they didn’t need me to be a friend. Moreover, they went home to Dayton almost every weekend, and I was by myself. The result was that I studied a lot—far more than I would have if my roommate situation had turned out as I had expected. This in turn got me into study habits that led to better grades than I had ever imagined and made it possible for me to seriously think about attending Yale Law School. And thereby hangs another tale of good luck.

      In those days, Miami had a system of faculty counselors. I was assigned to a political science professor named Straetz. When I first met him he looked me right in the eye and asked where I wanted to go to law school. I said that I didn’t know. He said, “Don’t you think you should try to go to the best law school in the country?” СКАЧАТЬ