New 06.25.05

While in Florida last winter, Dan Eckberg a Hopkins High School colleague (and one of my role models) had lunch with a couple other teaching colleagues. He discovered that the sister of one of our colleagues is now a published author. Cheri Register's book had just been published by the Minnesota Historical Society. (I also discovered when Dan wrote that he was the sound engineer for lectures Buckminster Fuller gave at St. Olaf College during a residency there. Fuller has long been an intellect I admired and now, after all these years, I discover that an old friend had time to talk to Fuller weekly for a time. Had I only known earlier. Now, there's a topic for the next time we have lunch.) The book Cheri Register wrote is Packinghouse Daughter, and it chronicles the events surrounding the 1959 strike at the Wilson & Co. packinghouse in Albert Lea, Minnesota. Register's father (and our colleague's father, of course) was a "millwright" at the packinghouse (i.e. a skilled mechanic who maintained the complex machinery). Dan wrote, "If you're interested in class differences in our society, you'll like this book." Given the responses from many of you to Nickled and Dimed, Register's book may be intriguing. Here's what Dan wrote about it: The story begins with grandparents giving up farming during the 1930s. Thus Gordy Register became a laborer in Albert Lea. "I feel as though I were born with a sensitivity to class." writes his daughter. "I understood, from Mom's fretful look, that bed sheets dyed chartreuse and hung over the living-room windows were a poor substitute for drapes." (The author's sister added that at a 40th high school class reunion her best friend in high school ã the son of the Wilson plant manager -- couldn't believe that working class families drove through the "fancy neighborhoods" on Sunday afternoons to look at the big houses.) In her chapter "A Dream of Joe Hill" Register discusses her working class roots amid stories of Joe Hill and attendance at a labor song concert in the local Machinists Hall. Register had just started ninth grade in 1959 when the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) called a nationwide strike against Wilson & Co. Mandatory overtime and a unilaterally imposed contract were the big issues in the strike. The other major meat packers had contracts with the union. Only Wilson refused a contract that had become an industry standard. Wilson hired non-union replacements. A picketer was knocked down by a car at plant entrance and retaliation against scabs' cars followed. Minnesota Governor Freeman called out the Minnesota National Guard to close the plant, but his action was later overruled by a federal judge. An arbitrator found a resolution, although bitterness meant that many workers, including Register's father had to make special appeals to get their jobs back. The small town of Albert Lea was shaken to its roots. At the book's conclusion, Register's parents are living in the same Minneapolis assisted living facility as former Governor and Mrs. Freeman. The couples had dinner together and Gordy Register showed the former governor and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture how to set the controls on his exercise bicycle. A bridge across the social class cleavage.