~Allowance was not in our vocabulary when I was a kid. If we worked, we were paid -- not much, of course, but something. It was taken for granted that I would help around the house because I was part of the family. When I also washed milk bottles every day after school, I was a “hired hand” and was paid 25 cents a week. Then my world suddenly changed.

In 1928, torrential rains washed away the three bridges between our dairy farm and Columbia. I was employed by the Columbia Special Road District to open and close gates. I earned three times as much in a day as I made in a week washing milk bottles!

All of the floorboards washed away from the long iron bridge that spanned Hinkson Creek. Two other bridges were completely gone. Farmers used their mule teams and iron scrapers to make a detour around the place where Fulton Gravel Road crossed the north fork of Grindstone creek -- now at 4038 E. Broadway.

At the crossing of Hominy Branch, Roy Mitchell gave permission for the road district workmen to cut his fence, put in a gate and route traffic through his cow pasture. They also made a makeshift wooden culvert that connected with Grandma Mitchell’s long driveway. That meant people had to go through a second gate. My job was to open and close those two gates to keep the cows and horses from getting out.

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On the way to school in the milk truck, I’d open and close the first gate and then go down the steep incline where the bridge had been, hop across the water on some big rocks and climb the opposite bank to be at the next gate before the truck arrived. The road crew supervisor saw me do that and offered the job for weekend~s.

Lucky me, no one said I couldn’t take my fishing pole to work each day or that I had to shut a gate if the horses and cows weren’t in sight. I took my fishing pole on that first Saturday, and I carried a tobacco can half full of worms in the big front pocket of my bib overalls. I hid them from one weekend till the next, near the deepest hole of water. I could watch the cows and horses and open the gates as needed without neglecting my work. Having fish wasn’t the idea; catching them was my objective, so I threw them back to catch again.

I knew most of the people who came along, but a few strangers would offer me a nickel. At first I was embarrassed to accept it because I was making so much money and having so much fun with those little perch and mud cats. The embarrassment soon wore off, and I enjoyed jingling those coins in my overall pockets. Mom made me wear a dress on Sundays.

One Saturday, a stranger in a shiny Buick touring car gave me a dime. The following week he returned on Sunday morning, gave me another dime, saying, “I gave a little boy a dime here last week so I’ll give you the same.” Away he went while I was pondering the ethics of not telling him that I was that same kid. I had discovered that earning was a fun thing, much like fishing. Now, in my old age, “Granny’s Notes” is the baited hook and HJW III is the catch. But don’t tell!