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

Moving Forward
to Duane, because he was 4 years older than my father. He accepted the role, but
it cost him his dreams of moving to California and becoming a writer.
Uncle Duane had gone to Kansas State for 2 years. I had no idea what that
meant, and it certainly never made me think about going to college, but I was
interested in a picture of him in clothes other than overalls and another of him in
an ROTC uniform. I did not know why he had not completed college—perhaps
he could not afford it, or maybe he was needed on the farm. Aside from that one
remark to me, he never mentioned college or told me about his earlier ambitions.
Many years later, I remember seeing a desk with a typewriter on it in the room
that had once been his when he was growing up. When I asked my grandmother
about it, I was amazed to hear he had wanted to be a writer. When I think about
this today, it always makes me a bit sad and reminds me of the sacrifices some
people must endure.
Another event may have inadvertently put me on the path to college as
well. Between my junior and senior year of high school, my parents once again
moved to California. The aircraft industry had been revitalized by the Korean
War, and my father had had all he could stand of lousy-paying jobs in Nebraska.
The move was something like a slightly upscale version of the Joad family in The
Grapes of Wrath. The family car (the battered milk truck) would not make it to
California, and we did not have enough money for train or plane tickets. There
was a shortage of cars on the booming West Coast, so automobile retailers there
were asking car dealers throughout the rest of the country to provide them with
vehicles to sell. This meant it was possible to get free transportation if you were
willing to go to a car dealership seeking persons to drive one or more of its used
cars to California for sale there. I had a driver’s license by then, so my father,
my mother, and I each drove a car loaded with everything else we could squeeze
into these three autos, including my two brothers. There was also no money for
motels, so we pulled off the road at night and slept in the cars or on the open
ground. My brothers and I were still young enough to consider this a bit of an
adventure; for my parents, I am sure it was anything but.
When we arrived in California, my father once again found a job as a sheet
metal worker at Northrop Aviation. I was adamant about returning to Nebraska
to complete my senior year with my friends. I made my parents’ lives miserable
until they agreed, but only on condition I raise enough money to buy my
transportation there and back. I was also told I would have to work after school
and on weekends to support myself, except for housing with my grandparents
and occasional meals with them. As a result, I spent a long, miserable summer
in California assembling fluorescent light fixtures in a small factory to earn my
plane fare back to Nebraska. It was the first real job I had held that was not
on the farm, and I must admit I did not like the monotonous tedium of
factory work.
During my senior year of high school in Nebraska, I supported myself by
selling shoes in the afternoons and on Saturdays under a work-release program.
Journal of Public Affairs Education 93