Holy Moly Batman, I'm going to be Rich

…$2.50 an hour, Holy Moly Batman. Quickly I began adding in my head. That would be enough money for a hamburger, fries and a soft drink at the Grants Pass Lions booth this year at the fair. Finishing my chores up at Mrs. Birch’s that afternoon I rode my bike back home fast, I didn’t even notice the up hill part today. I was excited to tell my mom how rich I was going to become.

The next day I called the telephone number that the lady had slipped to me unbeknownst to Mrs. Birch. Answering the phone a lady on the other end said “Hello, Smith residence”. I asked are you Mrs. Smith? The voice chuckled and said “oh for heavens sakes no, I’m the maid; let me get her for you.” Thinking to myself they have a maid? A commanding voice comes on the phone and says “Effie Smith, can I help you” surprising me sort of by her tone. “Ahhh… yes this is Bill Hickerson… I pull weeds for Mrs. Birch. You gave me your phone number to call about working for you”, as my voice trails off, almost questioning myself now that she really gave me her phone number. “Oh yes, I remember you, but we’ll need to make an appointment for you to come, so we can see if you’re going to be a good worker or not” Mrs. Smith resonates to me. “You be here Thursday at 9:00 in the morning, sharp” where she proceeds to give me her home address, click, and the phone hangs up. Having my mom help me look up the address on the big fire map that hung on the State Forestry office wall, mom calculated humm… about five miles to Mrs. Smith’s house on Smith Sawyer road from where we lived now. I pondered to myself; Mrs. Smith must only be half as famous as Mrs. Birch since she shares the county road name with this other Sawyer person. But I was still pretty impressed that she had a maid.

Five miles is a pretty fair distance to ride on a Stingray bike so I headed off early, remembering the tart, 9:00 sharp instructions. Come to find out Mrs. Smith was an old schoolmarm too, but I sensed a meaner one then Mrs. Birch. She lived in a two story farm house surrounded by many more flower gardens then lawn. An apple orchard on one side, a pond with huge flowering lilies floating on the water on another side, with hay fields taking up the other open spaces. Mrs. Smith had been Oregon’s Flower and Garden President for over twenty-five years in a row. Her flower gardens made Mrs. Birch’s gardens pale in comparison. Mrs. Smith’s foliage appeared more like a semi orderly jungle then any kind of flowering garden that I had seen before. Mrs. Smith too had a flower bed dilemma.

Wild blackberry bushes had over taken her almost one acre sized rose garden. Actually I had to look pretty hard to even see any rose bushes in the brambles.  Mrs. Smith pointed and explained, “We’ll see how well you do at this job, and then I’ll let you know if I want to hire you more often”, as she hands me the pruning loppers. Pulling my worn leather gloves again from my hip pocket, I wanted to make a good impression as I began tearing into those berry vines. I began cutting, lopping and trying to pull huge chunks of berry vines away from Mrs. Smiths rose bushes. With almost a shriek Mrs. Smith yells “not that way young man”. “You are pulling the thorns from the berry vines across my rose bush stems and you are going to damage them,” she hotly explains. Thinking to myself, ahhh roses have thorns too you know. She proceeds to show me just exactly how she wanted the blackberry vines cut away and then extracted carefully from the rose bushes before I wheeled them off to the big burn pile near the orchard. An elderly farmer looking man strolled along about then and Mrs. Smith ordered him to watch over me and make sure I was doing it right. He turned out to be the Mr. part of Smith. He looked like your typical farmer. He wore overalls pulled over a long sleeved plaid shirt, topped off with a straw hat. He never said a word to me he just watched as I meticulously cut the blackberries wound around those pitiful rose bushes trapped underneath all their thorny cousins weight. Chewing on a piece of straw as he ambled around watching me work for awhile but he eventually strolled off somewhere as quickly as he had arrived a few minutes earlier.

It took me almost a month cutting on those damn berry vines.  I had never cussed before I had taken on this job but my arms had been ripped to shreds from this thorny task. Sometimes you just have to say “Darn-it” when the thorns would pull across your fleshy skin. I still snuck out to Mrs. Birch’s house periodically to complete my chores there but for a dollar an hour less then I was now making at the Smith ranch.

My folks eventually moved to our, new to us house, on Caves Highway, where my mom still lives today, a whole three miles closer to the Smith ranch then before. Soon afterwards I gave my job up at Mrs. Birch’s knowing full well that I would not be having milk and cookies anytime soon at Effie Smith’s house.