***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…

 

 

… he had not been back a year, most of that year spent sullenly, quietly in a rage, in a rage that having served, served well, had done his duty, had done his job, from what his discharge papers said, he was unable to find work, real work. Found that he in heading north, north for her met at a USO dance in Portland, headed north to share his fate with her like he promised if he made it back, had avoided no traps, there was no need for coal-miners or a cold-miner’s son, in the Olde Saco labor market. Damn, and those recurring nightmares, that feeling that he would always be unclean after what he did (and seen done by his fellows) overseas, over in that island-hopping Marine splash didn’t help either.

But he stayed silent (and would like many in his generation remain silent, silent unto the grave, keep his hurts to himself, about went on over there), took the first low-rent job that came along, floor-sweeper in the MacAdams Mills just down the street from their house. Well not really their house, their home such as it was, in the quickly built Olde Saco Veterans Housing Project, built to ease the housing crunch with all the boys coming back. Took that job, well, because with the baby, and another on the way, he could not do otherwise. And he thought just at that moment, that moment as he swept up the leavings from the mill floor that things had to get better, hadn’t they …