How many DU'rs had a dad who carried a "lunch bucket" and wore

[Peregrine Took]

"wash pants?"

My mom used to go into the local working men's clothing store and Fred, the owner, would climb a ladder, get a box of pants off the top shelf and she would buy a couple of pair which would last him a year or more.

This is the era before jeans.

For lunch he would get a thermos of coffee and 2 or 3 sandwiches wrapped in wax paper which he used to share with a skunk who lived on the hill outside the factory.

Rain, sleet or snow he maybe missed one day in 45 years.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Thanks for the memory

I haven't thought of my Dad's lunch bucket in years. He didn't wear wash pants, but a Post Office shirt and regular pants. He took his lunch, in a black metal case with a curved lid that held the thermos. He took his coffee with him, along with the waxed-paper-wrapped sandwiches. When he got home, it was my great job to open his lunch bucket and take the lid and top off the thermos, put them in the sink for washing with the supper dishes. Then there was the mail inside, which I got to look over before anyone else.

It had a special smell, a very clean, cold kind of smell that just now fills my head as I remember those sweet moments from all those years ago, and I thank you for reminding me of something so dear.

[Peregrine Took]

4. Do you remember how careful you had to be with the thermos lest the

inner glass be broken and it had to be thrown out and a new one purchased?

Everyone knew something bad happened.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I do, and

I also remember the nice scent of coffee that came out of that thermos. Actually, it was my Dad who broke the thermos, and that was when I found out there was glass inside. I'd looked in, but all I'd seen was a shiny silvery surface.

[mainegreen]

2. I have a lunch bucket.

And a thermos and my sandwiches are so wrapped in wax paper.


I have no idea what wash pants are though.

[Peregrine Took]

3. They were gray and heavy - probably so they wouldn't tear and, therefore,

last longer.

I don't know how they wore them 4 seasons. Even in the hot weather the men in those days wore their wash pants (easy to wash?) all week.


On Sunday they wore their suit to church.

He was buried in his suit but we didn't realize how much weight he had lost while in the nursing home and I felt so bad as it was way too big for him.

I had nightmares after his funeral that we didn't do right by him and, instead of his being buried in a Catholic cemetery (which he wss) we just buried him under the house in the crawl space.

[trof]

13. Wash pants as opposed to 'dress' pants

Which had to be dry cleaned in the old days before wash 'n wear.
I remember.

[Redstone]

5. Yup, He worked in paper mills, back when we made paper in America.

Redstone

[RedShoes]

6. I pack my father's breakfast and lunch in wax paper each and every day.

and he works at a factory. He could retire, but he says that people need to DO something, so he does that.

[Swede]

8. Dad worked on the railroad. He had one of those lunch buckets.

Sandwiches and an apple,thermos of coffee. He,too,never missed work. Thanks for the memory.

[MilesColtrane]

9. Lunch bucket, overalls, and hardhat, every day...(also carried a slide rule in his pocket)

Later, when he made plant manager, he just wore regular shirt and pants (probably Dickie's), but still had the hard hat and still took his lunch with him.

We didn't find out til after the cancer took him that the polyvinyl chloride that his plant made every day for 35+ years was a deadly carcinogen.

[Skittles]

10. mostly I remember my dad in a USAF uniform

including what was tastelessly referred to as a "c*** cap". :o Not sure what he did for lunch but I don't remember any lunch thing, even though he alternated working all three shifts

[Crazy Dave]

14. Air Force brat here

Same thing with my dad, up at 5am everyday even on the weekends. Couldn't stand for the rest of the family to be "sleeping in all day" and made everybody get up no later than 8am

[Skittles]

21. LOL

man, it was a pet peeve of my dad's for anyone to be "needlessly sleeping". He was a meteorologist who alternated all shifts (every day on the calendar was marked D for Days, N for Nights, S for Swings and O for offs. WOOOOO! :D

[csziggy]

11. Mom made Dad his lunch in brown paper sacks

When he was prospecting, he wore khaki pants and shirts into the field. I don't remember him carrying a Thermos bottle, but I do remember the big Igloo cooler he strapped to the back of the truck. He'd stop by the ice plant on the way out of town and buy a ten pound block of ice for the cooler, then fill it with water. In Florida in the summer, that big Igloo sometimes did not hold enough water for the entire drilling crew and they'd have to break off early or get heat stroke.

[krispos42]

12. Lunch bucket (a cooler), thermos, hardhat, steeltoes.

Jeans when it was warm, Carhart insulated overalls when it was cold.

He's an operating engineer, union. Came home splattered with concrete, usually.

[ScreamingMeemie]

15. My husband..up until August of last year.

[datasuspect]

16. my dad worked for the "dept. of tony" (streets and san)

in chicago in the mid to late 60s. they'd grill meat everyday when they were playing cards in the little shack at the incinerator. when they were on the clock.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. We took lunch out to Dad, Grandpa and my uncle while planting and harvesting

and we all ate it together on the tailgate. Grandpa wore Osh Kosh overalls - I thought he was going to be buried in them!

[QueenOfCalifornia]

18. My step dad

who raised me wore dark blue work pants and a dark blue shirt with the American Airlines insignia on the upper right side and he always had one or two AA pencils in his pocket and one behind his ear.

Dad was the first aircraft mechanic that American Airlines hired in Los Angeles post WWII.

He rarely missed a day of work, there was no such thing as calling in sick for that guy. He made the other guys who were younger than him angry because he refused to cheat the company by working too slow or for not doing his fair share. Dad was an honest guy who worked an honest day. He was the best aircraft mechanic that AA had for many years, he could fix anything and didn't care so much for the rules of who should do what but rather, he just wanted it done right. I always felt safer when I knew I was flying on a plane that he maintained.

Dad carried a black lunch bucket with his thermos filled with one of the hot soups my Mom made every week - she was a great cook. He took a couple of sandwiches, some kind of fruit and used a tin cup to fill with ice water at work. He left the house at 6:30 AM and drove the 20 miles to Lindbergh Field and prior to that he drove about 10 miles to LAX. He went through the maintenance entrance near air freight. When I started driving I would go down to the airport and have lunch with him - we would take a rare hour and drive to one of the local restaurants near the airport and Dad would watch the big planes taking off and landing, he could call out what plane was which by just the sound of the engine as it moved down the runway.

Dad retired when he hit 55. He needed to since he had worked for that company from its early days. He died shortly after of stomach cancer. I miss my Dad so much. He was a kind man with big, meaty hands and his fingernails always had the black grease of a thousand airplanes under them. I love that man so.

[Bombero1956]

19. My Dad worked at a foundry

he brought lunch from home, 2 sandwiches (either tuna or fried spam) a thermos full of coffee and an apple or banana. My Mom ironed his work clothes and his hankerchiefs the night before.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. Lunch bucket, wax paper, thermos -- check.

His work clothes were called "Dickies" whether they were that brand or not.

[NanBo]

22. I remember

Mom wrapping Dad's sandwiches in the wax paper every night. His favorite was cold meatloaf sandwiches with catsup (ewwww). Tool and die maker for 45 years, up at 4:45 am, often worked Saturdays for the overtime.