Oops! I missed a day!

Here's the last of the unsent stories Mom had written.  It's pretty funny.  Enjoy!

Steve

I started to tell you how Cappy, (your Dad, Grandpa, Uncle, friend, etc., etc.And my husband!) got into the Mexican "Bracero" program.
He went to work from the shipyards to work for a friend of the family on a big dairy, and fruit farm. They had Mexicans on this "new" program the Govt. was starting and so we went to work up in Wheatland for the aforesaid guy! While there we lived in a brand new furnished house, etc. We were not too far from Beale Air Force Base and when the Mexicans would get off work at night we would take them up to a "Tavern" Roadhouse actually, and they could get a meal there and dance with some of the customers, have a drink or two and come home! Mainly the trade was from the Base and what tourists would come down the road! The guys, some of them had girl friends, etc.so it gave the workers a little recreation! After a couple of hours we would take the boys back home, singing but happy (most of the time drunk! They didn't have to work on Saturdays and Sundays there at Sandercock Farms! These guys were pretty nice and the folks who owned the roadhouse made them feel at home! Of course, Cappy and I had a ball too because we loved to dance! After a season of this the Farm Security Administration came into being or at least into the bracero program and so Cappy was hired then by the government! Rationing had come into being and we were given little ration books of stamps for groceries, that is some things, like meat, sugar, flout, etc. and we had ration stamps for shoes, and gasoline for our cars! When we first went to work for F.S.A. we were still sent to farms and had our housing furnished, if we wished their housing, or we could rent a place on our own., which we did when we first started to work for these people!

I remember the first paycheck they got at this one place near Healdsburg, Ca. they wanted to treat their "boss" I had a houseful of kids in town to take care of! Namely, Cappy's son Les, and two of my brothers and my sister Teresa had come to "visit" us for the summer and the boys got jobs picking hops, which was what the Mexicans were doing!

What a job! These hops are used in making beer among other things and they grew up on tall poles. They were sticky, smelly and when they worked in them they really earned their money!!!But this first "payday". I couldn't figure out what happened to Cappy because he was there for dinner at night but he didn't show up! Teresa had had her tonsils out that day in the hospital and even tho she had had that they sent here home that day! So, I told her,"Why don't you just sleep here in bed with me tonight" When Cappy comes home, we'll have him go up in the loft with the boys!" So she agreed and about 11"P.M. we hear this bam! I jumped up out of bed and looked out the back door. Cappy, who was never a heavy drinker, had run right into the garage door with his car! I went in and told Teresa, poor thing and I told her, I'm coming back to bed now and I'll just tell hime to go up stairs to the loft! Well, he comes stumbling in the back door and over to the bedroom door and stands there as drunk as could be! "Hello Honey!" I yelled at him, "don't come in here we'll get a cot down out of the loft for you!" I got the boys up and instructed them to bring a cot down stairs! Cappy says "I'll do it and the boys are coming down stairs with the cat and can't get by him" I pulled him out of the way and told him to sit down!!! In no uncertain terms!!! Teresa came out of the bedroom and told me to just let her sleep out there! I did, and I'm telling you once Cappy hit our bed, he was out like a light!! Good thing! I probably would have killed him!!!

Any way when that season of picking hops was over, some guy talked Cappy into going to Bakersfield to work with him, weighing cotton! But that's another story, and I'm tired! I did my watering today outside and decided to do some trimming of my roses and a few other gardening jobs, and then I had to rake everything up! By this time, (almost 10:00 A.M.) I decided to let the gardener who mows our lawns, etc., to pick up the yard and garden trash!!