My Buddy

     More Letters From Paradise
          My Old Buddy

His name is George Hennig, and we first met in 1965. We were both teachers working in  two separate school districts, only five miles apart. Teachers had been granted the right by the Michigan Legislature, to bargain for salaries. Teachers all across the state joined the Michigan Education Association. George was Monroe County President, and I was president of my school.

George had been in the Airborne 508, part of the 82nd Division. And I had been in the Navy. We found we had a lot in common: sailing,fishing,hunting,and beer.

Teaching salaries were miserably low. I was making $4500 dollars, with no benefits at all. George wasn't making much more. He is a journeyman carpenter, and worked his butt off roofing houses during the summer. I became Justice of the Peace, and worked for the State inspecting bees. The average salary in the county was $7,000 a year. Teachers wanted a $7,000 starting salary. When the schools in both of our districts failed to meet this figure, George resigned, and so did I. He found a job in another district near Detroit's Metro Airport. At his urging I followed after him. We stayed in that district until our retirement.

Those years were not all tea and roses. We went six years without a contract. Picketing,letters to the editor had no effect.There were problems too in neighboring school districts. Teachers in one district  refused to teach without a contract. The judge  ordered teachers to report to work, or go to jail. Some of the male teachers refused to do so, and were photographed, finger printed, and were sent to jail. They now had a record as a felon. When the dust died down, the returning teachers were reassigned to different buildings and assignments.
In our school district another teacher and I were suspended. But that is another story.

This story is supposed to be about George, but so much of our friendship was all bound up in those difficult years of labor strife. Let me turn now to better affairs.

With a better and brighter financial future, he was able to buy a sailboat. It was a far cry from his little seven foot rowboat. I also bought a smaller sailboat.

We sailed on the Western end of Lake Erie. The lake is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, and also the most mean for sailing. The weather can change suddenly. Our end of the lake contains a few islands. It was there that Commodore Perry defeated the British fleet in the War of 1812. The American ships were built right there. Fantastic effort. Hell of a story.

We had a friend Ron Martin, who owned an old wooden Trojan power boat. We went to South Bass Island to a place called Put-in-Bay. This place is famous for sailers to go and raise hell. I brought along an electric roaster,turkey, stuffing, and potatoes which were mashed with a beer bottle. The dockside dinner that summer is a great memory for both of us.

I should also write about our fishing together. First in his little wood rowboat, and later in his big boat. Once we caught 30 pounds of lake perch from the little boat, in really rough seas. We took most all of the fish we ever caught to Matthews Bait shop, where women standing in rubber boots, with rubber aprons, cut fillets for ten cents a pound!

Sometimes while fishing for perch, we would each hold two fishing rods with a spreader having two hooks. And often caught a fish on each of the four hooks.  

I remember one time while George and I were hunting rabbits, we came across a cache of antique bottles. While we were digging in the pile of bottles, George said suddenly,"Look there goes a rabbit!" We didn't get any rabbits that day, as we filled the pocket of our hunting coats with antique bottles.

Life changed for George when his wife Peggy left him, and all his children moved away, leaving an empty house. Sometime he and I would sit at the kitchen table and play our  dulcimers. This is a folk instrument often shaped like a violin, and is played by strumming the strings. Its origin is in the hills of Appalachia. There is also a dulcimer played with small hammers.

George loves to sing, and for many years he sang barbershop music. He even had his own quartet. And as we rode together to school, he would often break into song.

And speaking about riding together to school, we took turns driving our cars, and never were involved in an accident. One time we skidded into a snow bank, and another time the left front wheel of my pickup truck fell off.

 In the spring we would take the back roads with a six pack and look for, and find wild  asparagus. on our way home.

George and Lou have been together some 31 years. And they purchased a mobile home in Florida, where they would live to escape cold Michigan winters. They did not travel to Florida this past winter due to health problems. And as I write this, I will be eighty in August, and George is 89. George remarked when I last saw him, "Who would have thought that we would have lived this long?"

        Aloha
        Grant