WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Gary L. Wamsley
It was not hard; but, like the job at the light-fixture plant in California, it was
exceptionally boring.
External circumstances can often be as influential as internal motivation in
dictating what direction our lives take. By the time I graduated from Falls City
High School, it was clear to me there was no future in farming; the farm barely
supported my grandparents and my uncle. It was already mortgaged to the hilt,
with no prospects for improvement. I could not imagine making any kind of
life for myself given these circumstances. If you did not inherit a farm, or unless
you were wealthy enough to buy one, there was no way to be more than a renter
or a hired farmhand. Although I had wanted to be a farmer, I cannot say I was
terribly upset about having to abandon that notion. At the same time, I knew I
did not want a career selling shoes. My townie friends were scattering, and most
were doing what I had never consciously considered—going to college.
About this time, my mother suggested I return to Los Angeles and enroll
in college myself. I had no better ideas, and I knew I did not want to continue
selling shoes. I also knew that males my age would be drafted if they were not
in college or had some other grounds for exemption, so I agreed to try school
without giving it much more thought.
Getting into college was easy in California then, even with my less than
impressive high school grade point average. I could have gone to UCLA, which
was tuition free, but I arrived too late to register for fall term. So I went to a
nearby junior college, which was also free. I could live at home and not have to
work. The college had an art department, and I had always liked to draw, so I
became an art major. It was as simple and embarrassingly witless as that.
The following year I transferred to UCLA and continued living at home,
although it meant a long commute. I soon decided I wanted to get an apartment
near school and live on my own, so I knew I had to work besides attending
classes. At these jobs I saw for the first time the wide disparity in working
conditions, incomes, and lifestyles among Americans. Although I had seen some
of this growing up, I had never realized how great the gap was.
For a year or more I sold shoes after school and on Saturdays until 10 p.m. It
was boring, hard work at wretched pay, but I did it until another uncle got me a
unionized job doing industrial insulation. It was full-time, so I could do it only
in the summer or over Christmas holidays, but it paid well enough that I could
move into an apartment bordering campus with three roommates. The work
was in refineries and steel mills, insulating such things as boilers and cracking
towers. As a “helper” of skilled union workers, I was paid $2.00 an hour, which
at that time was a very good wage for someone like me who had no skills. The
more experienced workers earned considerably more, but they applied asbestos
under incredibly hot conditions, sometimes on dangerously high scaffolding
or in cramped spaces without ventilation. They would end the day coated with
white asbestos dust, and no doubt many died prematurely of lung disease caused
94 Journal of Public Affairs Education