Mr. Harry Price and the Beer Sand

Where we grew up in rural Lack County, there wasn't much for young people to do during the summer, at least not in any structured environment

... Structured environments like summer camps or sports programs or anything... not in Baldwin. A lot of young people got involved in crime, drugs, sex, rock and roll, all of the stereotypical poor white contrivances to take our mind off of the looming mortgage payment, the lack of good food. The shit taste of the bad alcohol. From the time a Lake County citizen turned twelve years old until the time he or she invariably moved away, Mr. Harry Price, of Route 1 King's Highway, Chase (old Nirvana Proper), would pick up these little ambitious workers in his light blue metallic Buick station wagon and drive us to his modest two-story home to work on his little farm for the very generous wage of $4 per hour, for up to 6 hours at a time.

Longer shifts with Mr. Price were rewarded with lunch, lovingly prepared by Leota, Mrs. Price, the prim, white-haired wife of Mr. Price. Lunch menu was always the same. Two steamed frankfurters in steam-softened buns with onion, relish, and mustard. Lays potato chips, plain. Carrot sticks, 6-8. As many glasses of Vernor's ginger ale in frosty aluminum tumblers as you were bold enough to drink. The Prices prayed before meals, but they went to the big Catholic church in town and their meal prayers were the same as Grandma and Grandpas, comfortable old Catholic prayers. "Bless us Oh Lord for these, they gifts..." No problem. Sometimes Mr. Price would take us for lunch, cheeseburgers and cokes and pickles, at the cafe in town. On those occasions Mr. Price was jolly and full of stories, and we didn't have to pray before we ate, just us guys.

Mr. Price was a wealth of knowledge and folksy witticisms, in English or Polish slang. 

Dupa: That was Polish for butt. You bet your dupa. The dirt roads we sped around on out on the outskirts of the county were hell on shiny paint jobs. Car washes in all of the nearby towns made money hand over fist from proud auto owners washing their cars and shiny paint jobs lovingly. This was a time when cruising was a big deal, driving up and down the main strips of small towns all over the state, looking at girls and cars. Listening to music. Talking shit about the other drivers and the girls. It was classic Americana. 

By the time my younger brother was old enough to come earn money working for Mr. Price I had been doing so for four years or more and had been promoted from weeding and rock picking in the garden to helping slaughter the chickens in the fall, mowing the lawns with both push and riding mowers, and even helping sharpen the farm tools with a bench grinder and performing minor maintenance and rebuilding on his riding lawnmower's motor.

Fall in the Country

The days began to shorten as Fall came to Lake County. The leaves turned amazing colors and gave up the ghost, falling dramatically to the ground. They made piles like snow in the fields and up against the fences and sounded like ghosts and old dry bones as they ground up against one another in the wind. The sweet smell of decay wafted in the breeze. At the Harry Price farm, Mr. Price's mustache was in rare form, neatly oiled and lush above his smiling Santa mouth. 

"He would get out to look at the deer tracks on his favorite trails, surveying the old growth forests that stuck to his land where things began to rise into soft hills near the National Forest"

Mr. Price would drive us out, far far out into the fields and forest around his house, the scrub brush bristles of the grass and weeds scraping against the bottom of the Buick. He would tell us he did this on purpose to scrub off the undercarriage of his car, with no sense of irony. He would get out to look at the deer tracks on his favorite trails, surveying the old growth forests that stuck to his land where things began to rise into soft hills near the National Forest. We'd walk for a bit along the two-track lanes in the woods, gathering wild blueberries, wintergreen leaves and sassafras. 

Mr. Price would gather mushrooms, big meaty yellow and white ones, brownish-gray perfect oysters, frilly white frondosas with a lovely winey flavor perfect for an omelet or just an egg skillet with potatoes. On our birthdays, the Prices would surprise us with thoughtful, useful gifts like rubber hand grips for my first ten-speed bike that had just raw metal pipes for the handlebars. 

I guess Mr. Price had a bit of an ulterior motive for hiring us, and sure enough, we all ended up thinking maybe we should have been the ones paying Mr. Price for all the lessons, Polish slang, gardening, authentic German lunches before learning to garden, to reap and sow, sow and reap. 

The Beer Sand

Despite the fact that I had been de facto promoted to jobs that generally required more experience, some jobs required my younger brother and I to work together. One August afternoon Mr. Price drove us out into the field behind the farm house and outbuildings and we loaded two shovels and a pick out of the back of the car. Out here in the country the pit we were digging could be for many things, Hunting season was coming, for one thing. Mr. Price was a good hunter and careful with the cleanup of the game that he harvested. As Jon and I dug deeper and deeper we grew more and more tired. We started to slowly grow more and more punchy, like the oxygen levels were somehow gradually declining in the air we drank. Err, you know, the air we breathed. And that was a perfect mistake to show the way the beer sand was beginning to work on our minds. 

By the time Mr. Price came out to check on us and refill our thoroughly empty canteens, we were giggling like college kids on their first beer buzz. We staggered to and fro, into the hole and out of it, about four feet deep, not too hard to exit, yet but getting there. Mr. Price seemed pleased with our progress and he smiled and nodded as we desperately tried to hold it together and appear sober on the job.

Finally we could behave ourselves no longer. One of us broke the seal and mentioned the "Beer Sand" as we had taken to calling it, and we both fell over, literally, in peels of laughter. Mr. Price had brought the usual snack in addition to more water for each of us: a glass of Vernor's soda on ice, and a bowl of Lays Potato Chips. We staggered around some more and helped him refill our canteens, giggling from time to time. 

"Mr. Price, sorry." I said, finally. I considered it my job, as the older brother and more experienced, to be the main course of communication between my brother and I and our boss. "We, we got into some beer sand, here," I explained, completely earnest. This elicited a fresh peal of giggles from my brother.  

Mr. Price could be gruff sometimes, like when we were working on his tractor and got really greasy, he would say, sharply-ish: "Use the soap for the dirt and grease, not the towel." And he was right. And there were dozens of those little lessons, day after day, when we needed lessons. And the older I get, and the more I recall all of Mr. Price's lessons, the more I value them, and the time I got to spend with him.

He was just over 80 when he passed away peacefully, next to Leota, in bed. In my mind, all of our minds, I think, he was much much younger. So vital. We knew it was a good way to die, even at that age. What a good death looked like, for us, for poor people. And we knew that Mr. Price's Oldsmobile station wagon was about 8 years old, and he didn't have big troops of chickens anymore, like he used to . Back when he would plant a half acre of corn and again that of potatoes. A hard day's work. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and grilled cheese at a small town cafe. Vernor's soda with ice, in the summer. A good Polish hot dog with onion when you're hungry. These things make me think of Mr. Price, all these years later, and to remember all he taught me about life, living, and legacy.