In the 1940s as the world was in turmoil with the drumbeats of war, as the Nazis were consolidating power in the center of Europe, the rural America and in the heart of Texas many were still living a subsisting life. John was such a person. His father was a subsisting farmer in the Texas gulf Coast, rice farmer to be specific. But their family were of humble background sharecroppers, they had no property of their own. They had no accumulated capital to be able to lease even better properties. So they did what many poor landless farmers were compelled to do: lease low lying mosquito infested coastal property from the landlord for a year or two and raise his family with the share cropping arrangement.
They had no permanent house, the family’s house was a makeshift wagon, towed behind a tractor. The family of four children and a wife, all were housed in this wagon. This was nomadic life, since landlords in those days did not want anyone to be too comfortable in using their properties for too long of a time. So the family had to move frequently, sometimes even every year.
Wherever the family moved, the first job for their father, the head of household was to set up a pitcher-pump or hand powered pump and to set up an out-house for the family. His next job was to go to go over the work site of rice paddy field and set up another pitcher-pump and to fill up the rice field with water. its is said that among all farmers who all work extremely hard, rice farmers are the most hardworking by very nature of the job. the water level has to be constantly maintained and at the right time, day or night. imagine filling up acres and acres of porous muddy fields with right level of water pumping with your hand, no electricity, no diesel no gasoline! According to the atuthor of Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell, rice farming is the most laborious job in the world, people who had not farmed rice has no idea how much labor it takes to produce any rice, it is a day and night work, work through evenings and mid nights, work through burning sun and pouring rain. Rice farm or paddy fields had to be submerged in water at the exact time and water level had to be maintained exactly and varies from cycle to cycle of the life of the rice paddy. Rice farmers get least of the sleep of all probably, less than the Silcon Valley upstaters perhaps.
Our protege went to work for rice farming since his very childhood, he had worked there before even he stepped foot in any school and then continued through it spent hours and hours pumping the pitcher pump for the rice paddy to be submerged in water had no time to scratch the swollen wound blood sucking mosquitoes had left him since he had to use both hands to power the handle of the pitcher pump. He had to wait till coming home as a young child to attend to the sores of mosquito bite which scratched intensely and then turned to so many sores and the scars are still there in his 7th decade of life.
He promised himself not to be rice farmer ever in this life and to get a better life for him and his future family. So he moved further east of Texas and landed a job in an industry doing manual labor at 3 dollars and 75 cents per hour. As he worked hard he was noticed and he kept on developing his skills. He eventually moved to the technical department and started learning about machineries. In few years he became a crane operator and started earning a decent sum of money for his family. By now he had a beautiful wife and two daughters. He had just bought a new home and the family was content and was settling down. To keep up with his ambition and to pay off the home loan earlier, he started doing another part time job in the Sheriff’s office, in those days they used to call them “Deputy Marshall”.
His life was good by now, a family and a nice home, the memories of hand pitcher water well, the back breaking works on rice paddy day and night, the struggle to keep the water level high or low depending on the cycles of life of paddy fields and mosquito infested swamps were far gone but still haunted his memories. He finally achieved his American dream in the best way ever known: his own hard work and honest work habits.
His older daughter was 15 and younger one was 9, one Saturday as he was working on his bathroom to make it look even better than he had bought it in. This was about mid morning. His family decided to go to skating. His oldest daughter was like any other teenager of her age, developing interest in boys rather than in helping him or interest in household help. The younger one was a different story, she is daddy’s buddy. She is like her daddy, insisting on helping him in any chores big or little. On this Saturday the family decided to go for skating in the nearby town, a drive of 20 minutes. While this was the idea of the older daughter, the younger one wanted to stay back with her father to help him in the bathroom beautification work. But him being on call in his part time job of Deputy Marshall in the small town of Texas, he told the young daughter, “You have to go with mom and sis, I cannot leave you alone in house if I get called by the Sheriff’s office”. “But I want to stay at home and help you daddy” she insisted. “I know baby, but you have to go with your mother, I am on call”, he insisted.
Time went by fast and it was shortly after the noon, he got a call from the Sheriff’s office, it was the Chief Marshall himself, “You got to come to the office right now!” he commanded. By now he, our subject had heard about the accident that took place in the neighboring town. “I hope its not one of your people Sheriff” he told the Sheriff. “Just come now” commanded the Sheriff.
