We always subscribed to the Birmingham Post Herald. Papa searched the want-ads section, hoping to get work to do. Having gone to Howard College and being well educated, he also was an avid reader and tried to stay informed of world news. He discussed the news with the family as we sat around the fire in the winter or as we sat on the front porch in the summer.
I always read the funny papers, but I also loved reading the want-ads section. Perhaps, without realizing it, I was hoping I could find a job for Papa that he had overlooked. One night, when I was reading the ads, my eyes fell on this ad, “Wanted – Playmate for 3 ˝ year old boy.” It then listed a P.O. Box number for the reply. I read the ad once, then again.
“Look Mama, look Papa, here is a job I could do. I want to answer it, Papa. I need a postcard so I can answer it.” Mama looked at Papa and Papa looked at Mama, then both of them looked at me.
“I would like to try to get it,” I said.
“Then I will buy you a postcard tomorrow,” Papa told me.
Papa walked to the post office the next morning and bought me a postcard. At the time postcards cost only one cent. That night I asked Papa if he was going to answer the ad for me.
“No, you answer it. The ad is for a playmate and you want the job, so you answer it.” So I did and the next day I mailed it.
A few days later when I arrived home from school there was a car I had not seen before in the drive and a man and his wife sitting on the front porch talking with Mama and Papa. This was the couple who had advertised for a playmate for their son. The lived in East Lake. He was a World War I veteran who had lost an arm while in service. Now he was a switchboard operator and worked for the Birmingham Post Herald. She sold Watkin’s Products door to door. The man’s mother and daddy lived with them but they were not really physically able to look after the little three-and-a-half year old boy all the time.
I got the job! My first paying job and I was nine-and-a-half years old! Every Friday, when school was out, the couple would meet me and I would go home with them for the weekend. Sometimes they would bring me home on Sunday afternoon late. Sometimes I would stay over until Monday morning and they would bring me to school. I never got much money, sometimes a nickel or a dime, but they always bought me something that I needed. Sometimes I would get a new pair of socks or a new pair of shoes or a new dress or something that I needed for school, like a tablet or a pencil. If I did not especially need anything they would buy something for Mama. One time they bought her a beautiful new table cloth.
I loved playing with Claude, the little boy. They never ask me to do any work. They only wanted me to play with their little boy. I liked my job and liked being able to get things for my family and myself.
Friday night was the time that his parents spent with Claude showing him a good time and of course I went with them. We usually would go off to the Birmingham Post Herald where the daddy worked and wait for him to get off. While we were waiting he would show us all over the building. We watched the papers being rolled out, the type being set and we would play with the switch board.
After the daddy got off we would usually go looking for the peddler who sold “hot tamales.” I hated eating them. I would almost throw-up at the taste of them, but no one else knew it. They thought I liked them as much as they did. What I liked was driving around Birmingham at night as we hunted for someone who sold “hot tamales.”
With all my new things my friends at school were beginning to get jealous. I would just smile and say, “Well, you do know I have a job.” I did my “playmate” job for over two years. By that time I was getting tired of the job and was looking forward to entering Jr. High when school opened that fall. So I said goodbye to that phase of my life and to my first paying job. That fall, at twelve years of age, I entered Jr. High School.