In 1948 I wanted to get married so I asked my Dad if he had a job for me at the laundry. It turned out that he was just starting a new delivery route in North St. Louis and would be needing a driver. He had already ordered a new panel truck and while we were waiting for it to be delivered I was apprenticed to the veteran driver, Andy Kostedt, whose territory included Kirkwood and Webster Groves. I sat in the passenger seat of the truck and went every where he went, doing what he told me to do. At first he would go up to the house with me to deliver the bundles of clean laundry; he wanted to make sure I knew how to carry them properly and how to stack them against a wall if the customer wasn’t home (he was impressed when I placed the lowest package farther from the wall than the topmost packages…he said that was a sign of intelligence). When the customer was there he introduced me to them and I watched how he took the money and made change….or in the case of charge accounts how he handled the carbon duplicate invoice cards. He made change and handled the paperwork so quickly and with such confidence he looked like a magician shuffling cards. He was a stickler for how the dollar bills were arranged….folded tightly in the right hand pants pocket. Each bill had to face the same way and higher denominations were always placed behind. I was a little backward at doing this consistently and he would say over and over, “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

Andy was an outgoing person who always let you know how he felt. Whether it was gas pains or hemorrhoids it didn’t make any difference; he told you all about it. And he was a man in a hurry, driving with urgency, stepping out of the truck before it came to a complete stop. He would say, “C’mon c’mon! We have to make money for your dad.” And now and then, “Time is money.” He was blind in one eye and he would cock his head quickly from side to side in order to see. This chicken-like gesture was an integral part of who he was. He was a masterful driver even with the handicap.

He was impatient with housewives who didn’t have their laundry ready for pick up at the regular time. He would scold them, “Aw, Miz Wilson you know I don’t have much time….please be ready next time.” Or “Aw Miz James, I’ve got ninety stops this morning….I’ve got a wife and five kids…this is my livelihood.”
He had to scold them only once, and, as it turned out, the women found his fussing rather appealing. My Mom would hear from her friends on occasion about how they had received a scolding. They were usually chuckling when they told about it and we got the impression it was becoming a badge of honor to get the treatment. His confidence and frankness created a charismatic aura about him and he could get away with things that, I found out later, I could not. Going in and out of hundreds of households a week he would naturally encounter occasions when the customer was only partly dressed. He gave me a somber, knowing look and said “This job invites seductions.” He continued looking at me with his knowing look but didn’t elaborate.

The route took us to strange twisting streets and alleyway shortcuts. In places where double parking was illegal he double parked with aplomb. Once he was stopped by a policeman who said he was speeding. “AW YOUR SPEEDOMETER IS OFF! I was watching my speed” he shouted. After a few awkward exchanges, the policeman backed down. Andy was always running into people he knew. In one strange store he went in and came out with a piece of paper and some dollar bills. He mysteriously let on that he had made a “deal” with someone but didn’t say what the deal was about. Looking back I have a feeling he must have been betting on something, but I’ll never know. For someone who was so frank and open he was secretive on occasion.
He stopped at taverns to go to the bathroom and for a beer. (In the garage at one of the customer’s house, he peed into the floor drain as casually as putting his cap on….reminding me that he felt at home anywhere). The procedure was usually one stop in the morning and one in the afternoon. The tavern stops set a precedent for me to follow for the next four and a half years.
I wasn’t conscious of it at the time but in retrospect I realize I had been apprenticed to a master. No one could have manipulated the bundles of dirty laundry so quickly, stuffing them in the canvas laundry bag spread open in the classic elbow-to-the-side-arm-stuck-out technique. Like a veteran juggler he balanced the bundles of clean laundry, sometime three packages high, grasping in a free hand a pack of other articles like curtains or trousers on hangers. And with this load he would squeeze through back gates and up tight stairways. And no one could have handled the customer interaction with more authority and speed. He was there and then gone in a flash.
My truck was finally ready. I picked it up: a beautiful new Chevy panel truck painted green with “Hollis E. Suits Family Laundry” painted in gold. I drove to the laundry to go over the route I would take the next day. The process was simple: the driver who had been handling the few accounts in Northwest St. Louis gave me a sheet of paper with the names and addresses of the accounts he already had. His list was a routing list, that is, they were listed in order of which to go to first, second, and so on. The process was simple: pick up the dirty laundry on Wednesday, bring it to the plant, turn it in to have it washed and pressed, and deliver the clean laundry Saturday. This was fast service in those days (1920s-1960s). It was surprisingly easy to locate the customers’ houses the first day. Picking up the dirty laundry - - - almost always wrapped in a sheet with a big knot tied at the top - - - was just the same as when I worked with Andy.

I would bring the truck load of bundles back to the plant, 1517 Clark, downtown St. Louis, park the truck at the back loading platform and ask the assigned workers to unload it. Sometimes when several drivers arrived at nearly the same time, one of them would give a quarter to anybody who would unload his truck first. This would get him ready faster for the delivery process that afternoon. This made Dad angry and he stopped it.

The bundles were brought up on an elevator to the people who opened the bundles, read the instruction tags penned to the bags, and sorted the clothes according to the requested service. For example, any sheets, pillow cases or other flat ware would go into one mesh bag closed with a large safety pen numbered with the customer’s number; terry cloth towels, wash cloths, underwear, and socks were put in another mesh bag; all clothes were put in baskets and sent to the washing machines.

After washing, all items were dried in huge tumblers. Towels and wash cloths were fluff dried so they were completely dry and hot before folding; flat ware went through enormous mangles. The customers’ numbers accompanied each batch and they were brought together at the packing station. They were packed and an identifying label-invoice was glued on. The invoice indicated which driver was to get the bundle and each was put on a moveable rack in that driver’s area. The driver would then arrange bundles in the order of his routing, making sure that the last stops were loaded first on the truck. On heavy days, usually Thursday, this was a time consuming task. I would eventually have over ninety stops to make on a Thursday afternoon. Andy would have over a hundred.

When the racks were ready to be loaded, the driver would go down to the alley, pull down a large enclosed slide that was attached to a second story window, open the back door of his truck and back up until the slide entered. Then he would ring a bell for somebody to start sliding the bundles down. Putting the bundles in the chute and sliding them down was fun, the most pleasant job in the entire laundry operation. On only a few occasions would there be friction between the slider and the truck driver, usually a complaint that the bundles were coming too fast. When one driver complained about the speed, the slider shouted, “Quit complaining and pay attention.” Now and then someone from the office would call down the chute to tell the driver he missed a pick up. This would stir up some kind of grumbling from the driver, usually that the customer was somehow wrong.

My mentor had prepared me well for all aspects of picking up, delivering, making change, and tavern etiquette. I had never been a habitué of taverns before but I adapted easily to it. The first thing apparent was that guys in taverns think and speak in a supremely simplistic way. Brother Mac said that they swim in the dark molasses of ignorance. There was a feeling of brotherhood in their relationship; it was important to agree with the other guy, so that “’ats right” was a standard response to whatever anybody said. If, on a rare occasion you wanted to express a disagreement, you had to do it diplomatically like “Well yes I can understand that and I’ve looked at it that way myself…but I don’t know….I just don’t know.” Then if there is anybody else who also disagreed with the first guy, he could then chime in with something like “’ats right, we oughta bomb’em back to the stone age.” So regardless of the substance of the discussion, the idea of bombing would bring them back together in their fellowship of ignorance. Though most of the tavern crowd were men it wasn’t unusual to see a woman. In my experience the woman was usually blond and in her late 40s or early 50s. She was smoking and had a gravelly voice. “’Ats right” was not her typical contribution to the fellowship; it was more likely, “You can say THAT again!”

On the hot St. Louis days, it was a pleasure to stop for a beer. When I was extremely dry I remember the liquid coming down my throat and somehow being absorbed by the throat lining before it got to my stomach. On those occasions I would have a second beer. To this day I don’t understand why some customer didn’t call the laundry and complain about the deliveryman with liquor on his breath. With all the lifting, running, panting and heavy sweating I must have given off some kind of odor. There was not one complaint in four and a half years.

During my first month I delivered a bundle to the back of a house where there was a patio door. This entered onto the dining room and I saw a woman inside, wearing only bra and panties, down on hands and knees under the dining room table looking for something on the floor. I knocked on the glass and she casually got up, put on a bath robe and opened the door. She paid me for the laundry, $2.36, and I went back to the truck. I was putting the money in my pocket when I noticed the carbon ticket showed only $2.35. I didn’t want to go back because she might still be undressed, and, also, the difference was only a penny. But I felt that as a matter of principle I should go back and right the wrong as small as it was. So I went back, and lo and behold, she had taken the bath robe off and was back down again under the dining room table. I quietly knocked on the glass and she put her bathrobe again and opened the door. When I explained the discrepancy she showed me the original invoice ticket. It clearly showed $2.36. I looked at the carbon and it became clear that it was originally .36 but a light smudge of the carbon made the 6 look like a 5. It was embarrassing and I don’t remember what I said. Whatever it was must have been some kind of mumbling apology.

Now and then I had a stop in some of the poor ghettoes. Franklin Avenue in downtown St. Louis was one of the most run down neighborhoods in the city and I had a pickup there. I had to go through an enclosed hallway with the smell of urine, with dirt and broken glass along the floor. On my way up to the third floor apartment I passed an open doorway. It didn’t have a door; there was a crude gate made out of scrap lumber leaning against the opening. Inside I saw a large rabbit hopping along the floor. It was almost a surrealistic symbol of life in the building being out of touch with the world outside. To this day I recall the feeling of despair I experienced walking through that strange world. When my white friends say, “Can’t the blacks at least pick up the trash in their yards?,” I try to describe the sense of futility that anyone living it in such squalor would feel. When poverty, dirt, and unhappiness have you in their clutches, you must think “What’s the use?”

Since my new route took only four days in the week I was called on to help answer the phones in the office of the laundry on the other two days. This involved taking orders for new accounts and also handling complaints. Because there were four members of the Suits family working at the laundry, Dad decided I should have a pseudonym for my telephone work to avoid confusion; we decided on “Mr. White.” And as Mr. White I would sometimes carry on telephone conversations with my own customers, not letting on that I was their deliveryman. Now and then when I was out on my route a customer would tell me that Mr. White was a nice man. What could I do but agree? (I was learning that people like you if you just listen). On one occasion a lady gave me some articles to take back to Mr. White. She explained that he said he would replace them. I said to myself, “No he didn’t.”

Taking care of new accounts was easy; handling complaints, I was soon to find out, took an enormous amount of diplomacy. Most complaints involved missing articles from the bundle just delivered. Second to that was starch in the collars of men’s shirts that had been specifically not asked for. Then there were damaged articles which included damaged zippers on men’s trousers. I had a tool that made fixing zippers easy by prying open the slider that had been ironed shut.

I learned early on that the only good way to respond to a customer’s complaint was to say right off, “Oh, I’m sorry!” It was important to show immediate sympathy. When I first started I remember customers would get irked if I responded indirectly by explaining our policy or some such generality. Once I got past the “Oh, I’m sorry” stage, then I could say “I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.” At our laundry that was an option. If it was a problem of putting starch in shirts when none is wanted, you could go out and find the instruction tag that the drivers used to pin on their bundles and you would underline the words that say “No Starch”. If the complaint involved missing articles, you would look through the lost and found box to see if they were there; if not, call them back to let them know we would pay for them.

Our biggest account was a family in Clayton whose monthly bill averaged $80. They began reporting losses several weeks in a row and they were convinced things were lost at the laundry because they had an airtight system of sorting and counting their laundry. They invited me to their house to look at the system. So in the evening I went out as Mr. White and explained that I was a member of the Suits family. This seemed to please them as if they were getting VIP treatment. They served coffee, making it something of a formal ritualized occasion. Then they took me to the basement, clean and immaculate with a laundry chute for receiving the laundry from the top floors. With a large canvas cart and table directly under the chute it was clear that nothing could get lost. So I asked them to figure how much their losses were and let me know. As a matter of good will, we were always willing to accept the customer’s estimate of monetary value. We gave them a credit on their bill without delay; then, several weeks later they called and said they found their maid stealing from the dirty clothes cart. They apologized and we took the credit off their bill.
After a while my territory was expanded to include south St. Louis, Maplewood, Brentwood, and Webster Groves. I had the occasion to drive on almost all the streets in those areas and developed confidence in finding my way around in strange settings. It was a wonderful education.

Meanwhile, Dad found out that somebody was stealing whole bundles after they had been unloaded from the trucks and before they were checked in. To stop it, Dad bought a revolver and took Mac and me out to the woods and had us practice using the gun. We used tin cans as targets. Then he had us keep watch at the laundry during the night. My watch was from 8:00 p.m. until 12 midnight; then Mac came in and stayed until 4:00 A.M. We positioned ourselves under the tables where the laundry was checked in holding a string that turned on the light in that area. I laid the gun gently on the floor. If someone showed up we were to turn the light on. No one showed up. Now Dad had given us precise instructions as to what to do if someone showed up, but honest to God, to this day I can’t remember what he told us.

In the Fall of 1951 I had applied for a teaching job at two hundred fifty University Art Departments around the country. I had only two years of college, but the Department Chairman of the University of Georgia, Lamar Dodd, said he liked the drawing samples I sent and would like me to teach there. So Alan took over my job, and in August, 1952, Joan and I, with eleven month old Julia, took off for Georgia towing a small trailer with all of our belongings in it.