Prisoner of the Truck
Chapter 1 : My Boyhood Prison (Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Order)
But this earlier childhood memory of a summer adventure had turned into a frigid winter nightmare. I wanted to be free to play with my neighborhood friends. I wanted to be like the kids I saw on my father’s route. As much as I dreaded these winter Saturdays during the school year, eventually it became a summer nightmare as well. I feared the summer school vacation when I would have to be on the truck from 5 AM to 9 PM, Monday through Friday and on Saturdays as late as 11:00 PM, close to 100 hours a week. This was my third year on the truck. I was a very unhappy child.
On this bitter-cold Saturday, as well as every Saturday during the school season, I was confined to this small-enclosed truck. I began to identify myself with schoolbook photographs of young boys who were prisoners of the coal mines. I was aware of child labor laws that stopped this practice. I wondered why my father was exempt from such laws.
At 5:00 AM the public market was already busy. The farmers were the first to arrive to present their produce to the hucksters and restaurant operators who were arriving about the same time. Around 7 AM, the general public would arrive for direct purchases from the farmers. Outdoor covered sheds provided shelter for trucks to back into stalls on each side of a mid-section. The mid-section was used by the farmers to display produce for sale. Buyers would walk in this mid-section to inspect and buy their produce. Farmers were under sheds in one section of the public market and hucksters were in another separated section. Stall numbers identified the location of the farmers and hucksters. Each huckster wore a large purse with a strap that hung over his shoulder. One compartment was for bills and the other for coins. Hucksters used the purse to pay cash to the farmers as well as to collect cash from customers.
Our market stall number was 103B. There were about 40 other hucksters in this section of the market. In the summer months, when I worked six days a week, my father was the last huckster to leave the market. He took more time to buy the best quality he could find. He also was able to negotiate lower prices from farmers who would otherwise return the fresh produce to their farms. NEXT PAGE
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