When my father

by Ray Levine

When my father arrived from Russia he was single and lived in a room in a friend’s house on the east side. He worked a few jobs, mostly indoors, and looked for work out-of-doors. An employment agency told him that although he was not a carpenter, he could work on a trial basis for a month on half pay, as a carpenter’s assistant at a building in Manhattan. He was very adept and proved his skill with the trade’s tools and was hired to hammer panels into place. He was promoted to work on the long, heavy beams. Just after the promotion, he joined the carpenters’ union. That was one of the smartest things he ever did. At work, soon after, he fell from a beam all the way down to the first floor. He broke his shoulder and couldn’t work anymore. Thanks to his union membership he received compensation that was supplemented by checks from the Welfare Department.