I Can Take It We Can Take It , livre ebook

Xlibris US - Jonathon S.H. Lewis

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

256 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

I Can Take It, We Can Take It, is a tale about a man born in 1915 and his struggles and successes throughout the Great Depression years and beyond. This book chronicles this young man’s journey in the Civilian Conservation Corps to magnificent lands that he had never seen before. This book follows this young man’s decision to literally fight and use his fists of stone, in order to provide support for his family while working in the Civilian Conservation Corps. In addition, he learned and used a valuable trade to use in his life from one of FDR’s New Deal Programs.

Sujets

Biography

Autobiography

Informations

Publié par	Xlibris US
Date de parution	09 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781669861478
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

I Can Take It We Can Take It

Jonathon S.H. Lewis

Copyright © 2023 by Jonathon S.H. Lewis.
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-6148-5
eBook
978-1-6698-6147-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 1/09/2023

Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
849921

Contents
Prologue

Chapter 1 Not A Great Year To Be Born
Chapter 2 A Bakers Dozen Makes Thirteen
Chapter 3 The Great Depression Hits Hard
Chapter 4 This Family Needs To Eat
Chapter 5 The Great Depression Challenges Our Way Of Life
Chapter 6 The New Deal And The 3R’s
Chapter 7 The 3 C’s
Chapter 8 Join Up And Prosper
Chapter 9 The Journey Out West
Chapter 10 Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My!
Chapter 11 Prize Fighting
Chapter 12 Homeward Bound, Maybe
Chapter 13 My Last Profession Fight And Homeward Bound For Sure This Time
Chapter 14 My Last Fight Of Any Kind And Boilermaker Start
Chapter 15 Marriage And Man Of The Family

Epilogue

Prologue
The year was 1934. I was 19 years old. I decided that boxing might be the end to the means for me to earn some big money. Mom and the rest of the family certainly needed more money to survive and to feed all of those children. I was a tough cookie in my own mind. I was in the welterweight fighting class and had not lost a street fight ever. My brothers and friends told me that I was tough and that I had fists of stone. This was my first professional fight and the prize for the winner was $90. That was three month’s salaries in my current job. That was big money. I was prepped and ready to do battle. I was as ready as I would ever be. Fists of stone don’t fail me now!
My first professional boxing battle was with a seasoned pro named Sonny Boy. Sonny Boy was a black man from my hometown. I knew him, or better yet, I knew of him. Sonny Boy didn’t have too much of a winning record, so I thought he would be a relatively easy opponent for my first real professional fight. Shit, I was so wrong. Sonny Boy was a very tough opponent indeed. Sonny Boy fought me hard. Sonny Boy wanted that prize money as much as I wanted that prize money. Sonny Boy broke my nose in the fourth round with a straight left jab. Goddamn that left jab stung like a crazed bee!
Sonny Boy and I had a long, hard ten round battle. Thank goodness that I was a lot younger and I was a lot quicker than my opponent. I was able to out point Sonny Boy in ten rounds even with my nose flattened. He punched way harder than I anticipated. I won my first professional fight in a 10-round decision, but I may have to seriously rethink this professional boxing dream. There’s a hell of a lot tougher guys than Sonny Boy out there in the boxing world.
Boxing may not be that road that I wanted to travel, maybe a road less traveled for sure. Let me sleep on this and heal my broken nose for the time being. That $90 win was really good though and my family certainly needed the money. My stupid, short-sighted rationalization was that I was a young buck, I was tough enough and I was good enough to do battle with anyone my size. I just needed some time to heal. Fuckin’ Sonny Boy, Jesus, he popped me but good! Aw, c’mon’ Ralph, you big pussy, buck up you fuckin’ baby! Hard times means a hard life! You know that! Fuckin’ depression, what a bitch! God Damn, my nose hurts! I don’t know if I really want to fight for money any more. Shit! Let me find some ice to put on my broken beak! Fuckin’ Sonny Boy! Man, you hit hard!

Chapter 1
NOT A GREAT YEAR TO BE BORN
1915 was not a great year to be born. Woodrow Wilson was our current President. The First World War in Europe was in its second year. The United States occupation of Haiti had just begun. There were 275 American people dead from a hurricane in Texas and Louisiana. This Jewish guy in Atlanta was lynched for the alleged murder of a thirteen-year-old girl. Prohibition was implemented only the following year. There was a lot of shit happening and I was just a newborn baby in August of 1915. What would be my purpose on earth? Who the hell knows? Who the hell cares? I sure do.
I was the third child born to my mother. I had two older brothers. Little did I know what was in store for me in my life. How the fuck would I know? I was just born and I was just born to a poor struggling family during an extremely challenging time in America’s history. Why would my mom want another child in this year of the Lord 1915? What was mom thinking? What was dad thinking? Do I have your attention? Do I have your sympathy? Am I asking too many questions? I want to make one thing crystal clear; I didn’t ask to be born. Oh, how things have changed since then. Just roll around these 1915 facts in your head a few minutes and see if you agree with me. These facts are all 1915 facts.
Moses Alexander was the first person of the Jewish faith to be a Governor elected in the United States. He was elected the Governor of Idaho. Jacob Ruppert and Colonel Huston purchased the New York Yankees for $460,000. Baseball teams this day and age can’t even purchase one minor league prospect for that price, never mind buying an entire team and never mind buying the fucking New York Yankees at that! Stick with me, I’ve got a lot more facts that may blow your mind. Hold onto your hats for the next one. The US House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote. What the flying fuck were they thinking with that one? Jesus H. Christ in a Congressional absolute erroneous fuck up! I’m on a roll so, hold on, I must continue with this nonsensical bullshit. Just remember that the year 1915 is what I am referring to and 1915 was the year that I was born.
Somewhere over this huge pond past the East Coast, some fucking idiotic megalomaniac and future Dictator by the name of Adolf Hitler received the Iron Cross second class for his bravery in World War I. Bravery? Give me a break! This fucked up, trumped up, honor to Hitler was a deadly harbinger that no one could have predicted at that time in history. We all know that now, but this is still an interesting fact.
Everything in America was not all gloom and doom in 1915. Alexander Graham Bell, an Edinburgh, Scottish-born inventor, had previously invented the first telephone. His call to his assistant, Mr. Watson in 1876, “Mr. Watson come here, I want you.” rang through loud and clear. This time, Mr. Bell called his assistant, Mr. Watson again in this 1915 year while he was in San Francisco. The one thing different from calling his assistant previously just one room away was that Mr. Bell called Mr. Watson in New York. Coast to coast communication, that was quite an accomplishment in 1915, don’t you think?
So, things were not all that negative after all in 1915. There were some good things happening. Hey, I was born. That was a good thing in 1915, I think? In addition, some baseball guy named Babe Ruth hit his first Major League home run for the Boston Red Sox and pitched 12 innings in a loss to those damn Yankees that I mentioned earlier.
Mom was a good woman but was kind of loosey goosey when it came to Dad. I’ll explain that loosey goosey-ness’ later. Pardon my ambiguity. Mom was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. How she ended up in this Ohio city on Lake Erie, I will never know. My oldest brother had a different Father. I never understood or found out how my father met my mother and what were the circumstances of their meeting, but I never really cared. I was never close to my father. He was not an extraordinarily loving individual. As a matter of fact, my dad was a complete and absolute shithead.
I found out later in my life that my dad wrote a letter of intent to denounce Kaiser Wilhelm II regarding his leadership in World War 1. I don’t know where the letter went or to whom it went, but I think that is probably the only good thing that he ever did, except father a bunch of children. Dad worked in an icehouse. That certainly fit his freezing cold disposition.
Dad hated everyone, especially his wife and children. Dad even hated himself. It wasn’t his fault that he was born an immigrant from a fucking third world country. I don’t know how he got to this country and that doesn’t really much matter at this point in 1915. This country was a much better country in which to thrive, or so he thought. Dad had a huge monkey on his back, a monkey he put there himself. He loved and cherished that monkey. Dad had the highest respect and admiration for this monkey that was witnessed by others almost every day. It turns out that Dad’s monkey was the real King Kong of beasts!
Dad’s monkey was that he was a lover of the hard stuff, booze, spirits, firewater, intoxicant, grog, liquor, sauce or any other name given to an alcoholic beverage. Dad was the nicest man a person could ever know when he was sober. The problem was that he wasn’t sober much of his waking hours. Remember that this country was in the age of Prohibition in 1915, but Dad still managed to find fire water whenever he wanted.
When Dad was drinking, he was one nasty son-of-a-bitch. He placed drinking number one on his p