The Red Flannel Rag

The shoe factory was closed when he returned from the war so Uncle Lurty got

him a job at Rockingham Milling Company. He stood over an open hole in the floor and

poured the ingredients for animal feed into a mixer below. It was a very dusty and dirty

job. I hate to admit that many times in my life I was ashamed of him because he always

smelled like chicken feed and had feed dust on his clothes and shoes.

He worked there for thirty-six years. For a short period of time, he was trained

by his company to diagnose and treat illnesses in chickens and turkeys. For those few

years, he wore clean clothes, gained a little weight, and looked really nice in his white

“doctor” jackets as he left for work to vaccinate sick poultry.

One summer he took a week’s vacation to spend time with his family. He bought

a nice hat and a khaki trench coat and took us all out to eat at Layman’s Restaurant on

Liberty Street. He took off his hat and hung his trench coat on the coat rack. We all sat

around a table as a family. We always had family meals at home, but this was the first

time, and only time, we ate in a restaurant as a family. Of course, I immediately went

into fantasy mode. Ever since I started school and read about Dick and Jane, I wanted a

daddy with a briefcase, necktie, hat, and trench coat. I wanted Mom, who was always

overweight, to be slender and wear nice dresses with a modern hairdo. I wanted to live

on a street in a town. In my fantasy, I was “Jane” in my first -grade reading book. My

brother was “Dick” and the other kids didn’t exist in my fantasy. Dad was “Dick and

Jane’s” father, he had a briefcase, and we lived on a street, with a street address, rather

than on Route 4, Box 10.

For the remainder of his life after he returned from Germany, talking about the

war seemed to put him in a good mood for a few days, yet it haunted him for the rest of

his life. After he returned from the war, I saw him cry only once. In 1963, when we

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