(Cathy) This was when you went to work on … you were shoring up the railroad tracks?
We were straightening tracks … this was for the Empire Builders, the high-speed train. We were raising tracks, were were straightening tracks, we were tamping rock under the ties, and lowering it, and getting it level, straight, and dressing the sides … you know how nice it looks with the rock …. that’s all done by machines now. We did it with shovels. We worked all summer, and we probably accomplished 5 miles of track. Now the machine will do 30 miles, one day, with two guys. Doing the same thing. They’re perfect now. They weren’t perfect when we did it. And the machines tamp rock, straighten track, everything.
(Cathy) How old were you when you did that?
Sixteen. I got paid 64 cents an hour. Ten hour days. $6.40 … and they started taking taxes out that year. So, in order to get Social Security you need to get 40 quarters. You have to earn money in 40 consecutive months. So, when I retired … we were in Alexandria … and I went in there, and I said, Look up my account, will you? I said, I know I don’t have 40 quarters, but I would like to know what I do have. She said, “Well, you have 40 quarters”. I said, I do? She said, Yeah, here it says you had almost enough quarters in the sixties”. Sixties? From teaching at night. When I taught all 13 years for Floriday State, 7 years, and the Univerisity of Puerto Rico for a few, and Interamerican when I had Mom in class. Anyway, I collect Social Security – not much – pidley compared to real people, but $300 or something like that a month. Pays groceries.
(You earned it.)
Oh year, but it was a surprise. And I was telling Mom, “Why didn’t you do some work then you could have collected, too.” And she said, “I was too busy raising kids”.
120624_003.MP3 – 30:00
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