My Dad’s Texas Job

James Higgins

March 31, 2024

Charlie worked on cars

all his life, liked to run his

own shop, but took a job

as a foreman at a dealership

in Abilene (my mother’s

suggestion), was too

independent to stay long,

so back to Merkel & a shop

behind the Greyhound station

& domino parlor, across the

alley from the ice house.

He treated people well, had

an honest partner, each day

at closing time they “settled

up,” got their wallets out,

went over the jobs, traded

cash then and there.

Charley, had an 8th grade

education, didn’t stop

him from buying & learning

to use what he called a turning

lathe, got so good at it that

drillers from the oil fields

would bring a broken part

and a piece of steel in,

he’d get his micrometer

case out, measure things

then sit for hours with that

lathe turning out a new part,

stronger than the old one,

exact, as it had to be.

Yet, he’d still take the time

to answer a call, drive miles

out to some farmer’s hot field,

get that Farmall or John Deere

tractor moving so the farmer

could plant his crop.

It was a hard life, a lonely life

too, but it was the life he wanted

& the life he lived.

Born in Abilene, James Higgins spent the first fifteen years of his life in Texas, living in San Antonio during the school year, then spending most summers with his dad in the little town of Merkel, where both his parents were born. Two different worlds, city life vs. small town.