13. The Tradition of Work
We learned about work at an early age. Every one of the children was expected to pitch in and contribute daily to the smooth functioning of the household. The boys mostly worked around the house, shoveling snow, cutting the grass, raking the leaves, taking care of the chickens in and about their coop, and collecting the eggs. The girls worked mostly inside, cleaning rooms, ironing clothing, washing the dishes, and performing weekly chores such as polishing the dining room set. Girls and boys alike helped their parents with the vegetable garden, weeding, watering, and harvesting. When we became teenagers, our responsibilities grew: Shaf began working part time in Dad's restaurant after school, and I had a paper route for a while. Claire and Laura augmented their household work with serious piano lessons ($1.50 a lesson) from a wonderful piano teacher, Miss Ann Breshnan, who lived two blocks away on Main Street.
The task of ensuring quality control fell to our mother, who monitored our efforts for what she called "the finishing touch." Mother's efforts sometimes produced mirth, sometimes grumbling, as she sent us back to do the job all over again, or at least finish what we'd started -- as with cutting the grass and raking it thoroughly together for compost. She viewed these tasks as strong fibers within the daily fabric of our family, something we came to understand when a heavy rainstorm or a blizzard came along to pose us a challenge. There's nothing like nature to bring about a swing-to-the-emergency camaraderie, even among easily distracted youngsters.
We were never given an allowance, for our chores or for any other reason. Our parents saw allowances as inducing divisiveness, inviting nagging (for increases), and likely to produce reckless spending. It was far better, they believed, to preserve the household as a place of shared responsibility, instead of making it a place of monetary transactions and having them pay for our work. And they believed that giving routine allowances would dull us to the meaning of money. Instead, we were obliged to ask our parents to buy things that caught our eye, forcing us to make a good argument as to why they should say yes -- something an allowance would have circumvented.
They did, also, want us to learn how to save. So when we earned some money outside the home, or were given money by relatives for birthdays or Christmas, they arranged for a savings account -- at first in a symbolic piggy bank, later in the local savings bank -- where we could deposit the proceeds. The little bank book in our name was a source of pride, for us and the other local children who were encouraged to save. The head of the Winsted Savings Bank even walked the kindergarten class to the bank to deposit their dimes and quarters.
Now, I'm not saying we always did our chores cheerily, or punctually. I know I sometimes grumbled when the call came to get going on cutting the grass or some other task. I would have preferred to keep reading or keep listening to the Yankees and their marvelous announcer, Mel Allen, on New York's WINS. So after the first call I would temporize. The second and third calls became more audible and insistent. Only when I heard my mother's footsteps heading into the living room did I suddenly decide I could skip the next inning or put a marker in my book. It always amazed me how fast the grass grew, the leaves fell, the chickens had bowel movements. But down deep I knew we all had to pull our weight for the greater good of the family, and that thought got me past these faltering moments. We children didn't know it at the time, but this was our education in the work ethic: Our parents were giving us far more than they themselves had back in the old country, but they were just as determined not to spoil us in the process. We had to earn it, to taste some of the exertion required for that better life.
Of course, not all the work was unpleasant. An afternoon spent baking in the kitchen was hardly a chore. My sisters were more attracted to learning the baking arts from my prolific mother than I was, and as a result they not only learned to make celestial Arabic pastries and bread, but also absorbed all the lore surrounding the celebratory baking events that preceded religious days and festivals in old Lebanon. They also got first dibs on every new item that emerged fresh from the oven. (I did manage to bake twenty-one bran muffins for my sister Claire's twenty-first birthday, which my parents delivered to her at Smith College, where she was a student.) And of course Shaf knew how to do everything, in and out of the kitchen.
For me, it was watching my Dad work his long hours in the restaurant -- solving every kind of problem you can imagine, from a failing boiler to a no-show cook to a sudden surge of impatient customers -- that showed me what hard work was like, and the patience and ingenuity it takes to run a small business.
I was astonished at how many things there are to worry about when you're running a restaurant/bar. Supplies coming on time, the food kept fresh, equipment kept in good running order, all kinds of services kept up -- my father carried these and other concerns on his back. He was on his feet so much every day and night that, over the years, his tired legs bulged with varicose veins, the painfully visible evidence of his intense commitment to support his family and save for his children's college and graduate school education. But the workplace was also a joy because he could engage his customers from far and wide in talk about community and public affairs.
When it came time for me to start working, I knew I wasn't cut out for the restaurant business. Thankfully, my mother and father agreed. It was while I was working my paper route for the Winsted Evening Citizen that I got my first feeling for the obligations of daily work -- and a taste of the excitement of small-town journalism. The papers were still warm as I piled them into my large satchel. Then it was off on my door-to-door delivery rounds, warding off dogs, braving inclement weather, chatting with family members eagerly coming to the door for their paper, collecting the weekly billings and getting glimpses of how people were making it through the day, sometimes pleasant and sometimes unpleasant. How could anyone not develop an ease with people under such circumstances! When it came to meeting regular people, it was the next best thing to being a postman.
Nothing speaks to my parents' view of work better than a story my sister Claire recalled. One day, when she was quite young, she was walking home with Dad when they passed a street cleaner. ''I'm glad I'll never have to do such dirty work," she cried out. Dad stopped and looked at his little girl. "Then you should always respect street cleaners," he said, "if only because they're doing work that you don't want to do, but that you very much want to have done. This is the same reason they should be paid well. Claire, as you grow up, you'll see all kinds of work being done. Don't look down on people for the work they do -- and don't be in awe of anyone, either." Laura had similar conversations with Dad.
Though it would be years before my sisters shared these stories with me, I'd long since absorbed those lessons. Without the labor of millions of low-paid, unrecognized workers, I realized, the economy -- along with the activities of the wealthy -- would come to a halt.