Ode to a Toaster

My parents with grandson Paul.

Louie,

Another letter I wrote to my grandson. Remember Martin?

Jim

Letters to Paul, Chapter 3

Dear Paul,

Today at coffee Martin and I compared our recent cataract surgery. He is seeing well after the surgery, I am seeing 20/20 for the first time since age seven. All my life I had glasses. The only times without glasses were when playing sports or sleeping. When playing football I was a statue, moving always a half step behind the ball carrier, I saw rear ends better than front-on tacklers. But now, my eyes see well. However, they tear during the days. Martin sees well, his eyes are dry, and he smiles a lot. He realizes the value of good vision; his wife has advanced macular degeneration. Because of that, he was apprehensive and scheduled his cataract surgery to be done one month after mine. He wanted to be sure - thought if a physician got through the process and was happy, he had a chance.

Martin is a unique guy. He is deeply religious; he served mass until he was eighty. He never curses, he is responsible, and he is caring. He worked for the post office for thirty five years, he was a rural mail carrier; always on the job, and never complaining. I have known him all of my life; I went to school with his brother, grade school and high school. In fact, I brought Martin’s brother a toaster for his wedding. The toaster lasted for forty years. Your Grandmother and I had at least ten toasters during that time. I suppose you wonder what a toaster has to do with my friend Martin.

I will tell you. Martin joined the army in 1942, at the invitation of Uncle Sam. He was drafted. After basic training in the South, he was shipped out. He ended up in India. There he was stationed in New Delhi, a teeming center of many million people. He, at breakfast, relates many stories of the people of India, which for years was under control of the British. After the war, the British ceded control of India to the Indians. But that is ahead of the story.

While in India, the weather was always hot and moist. The temperature ranged from 90 to 110 degrees, day after day. It rained sometime each day, and clothing if not hung up, rotted into a pile of damp rags. Martin served for three years in a supply depot and one day the depot received a railroad car filled with Miller Beer. Miller Beer was brewed in Milwaukee. Milwaukee was thirty five miles from Martin’s home, and he and many other soldiers felt an ownership of the beer. They also were very thirsty, the temperature being 110 degrees. What were they to do. Without asking they commandeered another railroad car, pulled it up to the beer loaded railroad car, and within fifteen minutes transferred fifty percent of the beer cases to the second car. Within another five minutes, they pushed the second car, now their beer car, to another track, and pushed, by hand, for a quarter of a mile. Imagine that, they hid a railroad car filled with beer. All this transferring took only thirty minutes and never again was the second car found by the officers.

Before Martin went into the army, he worked at a local butcher shop, and at his father’s tavern. At the tavern he served toasted cheese sandwiches and beer during Lent. The transferring of the beer took place during Holy Week, and Martin stated he would have given most anything for a toaster to make toasted cheese sandwiches and drink beer on the hot days in New Delhi. I guess I bought the toaster for the wrong brother.

Martin tells of the many poor people who lived, and died in NewDelhi. People lived in the streets - they were born, lived, and died at early ages in the streets; sometimes spent their whole lives within a mile or two of their birthplace; never getting out of the chaos of people. But it was a good time for the people. There was work for the natives, there was activity of war and the ever present GI’s who were kind and kept the natives employed. They also helped to hide the beer car. The officers never had a clue.

After the war, Martin came back to Hartford and was a most responsible man. He tended bar, but soon determined that bar tending was not a good business for his family. He then worked at the post office, but kept himself busy in city politics. He ran for alderman and served for at least fifteen years on the common council. He was always a sober man, drank some beer, but not to excess. Somehow he couldn’t drink too much; he had at one time, during very hot days, drank too much when he and some other soldiers had hidden a beer car. They had to destroy the evidence.

And so it goes, Paul.