Chores - by Dad

Dear Melissa,

One of the goals of my parents when I was growing up was to teach me to work and teach me to love work. I think both my mother and my dad had learned to love work and wanted to pass that on as a value to us, their children.

I don't remember much as a very small child and I don't think they expected much except to learn to play until I was a little older, mayby 8 or 9. I remember watching my dad do certain tasks that I wanted to imitate. It may sound crazy, but one of those was taking the clinkers out of the furnace. I suppose the mystery and the danger of the fiery furnace and the hot clinkers glowing in the bucket had the appeal that fiery things alwayshave for children and sometimes grown up children. But before I was allowed to do the clinkers, I had to fill the coal bin in the basement of the house in Heber. This involved shoveling coal into a coal bucket in the coal bin, which was a few feet away from the coal stoker, carrying it to the stoker and dumping it in, and repeating this until the stoker was full. This had to be done every few days in the winter as the screw shaped rod that moves the coal from the bottom of the hopper to the furnace automatically when the furnace was on would gradually empty the hopper, and it was important to never let the hopper become empty or the furnace would go out from lack of fuel. Of course, dad managed all that and told me when to fill the hopper until I learned myself to check the hopper and fill it when it needed it. It was, of course, a source of satisfaction to be doing something as important as providing heat for the family.


Some of the other tasks were doing the dishes - I think we had a dishwasher as long as I canremember and washing dishes meant rinsing and brushing them clean and then putting them in the dishwasher. I only remember a few times when we would stand around as a family and wash the dishes and dry them together, I suppose when there were too many for them allto fit in the washer. Now it may seem peculiar that we had a dishwasher in the 50's when those appliances were a little rare, but the business my granddad started and my dad became a partner in also sold appliances - washers, dryers, dishwashers and even televisions. My dad always thought we should try out these appliances and that he should learn to fix them, though uncle Guy was the official appliance repair guy at work. So we always had to try out the new appliances. This carried over into their later years and I remember how excited my dad was to get a trash compactor so the trash would only need to go out from the kitchen every 2-3 days instead of every day.


The other most dreaded chore ever invented was when we had a little cocker spaniel dog when I was in my early teens and that dog never really got house trained. During the winter it was difficult to let the dog out, so we kept the dog down the basement and it did its thing on the basement floor. As a result either I or Stanton would have to go down once a month or so in the winter and scrub the basement floor with an electric scrubber, then mop up the mess. It was the most horrible chore I can ever remember and explains why I was happy to get rid of that dog even though there was  a heartbreaking incident where stanton and I drove down to the humane society in salt lake to leave that dog at the insistence of our mother. I had to lie to stanton about what would happen to the dog, most likely it would be put to sleep but it might get adopted. He loved that dog but I felt like I was the one doing most of the scrubbing of the basement. It is always hard to think about putting the family pets to sleep, but sometimes it is part of real life.


Well, that's probably enough about early jobs and chores. This could go on and on to when I started working at the family gas pumps at age 13, washing cars, being a grease monkey, sweeping the floor at Heber Motor Company, and many other jobs my dad and mom gave me. Work and "chores" have always been an important part of my life as they are in practically everyones life. You learn to love em, you learn to hate em, you learn to procrastinate, you learn that procrastinating jobs doesn't help, you learn to just roll up your sleeves and get it done, and you learn that doing stuff together is usually a lot more fun even if there is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth when you try to involve you own kids. I guess I have never been as successful as my own dad was with me in convincing my kids that work and chores can be fun.


Love,

Dad