Wayne 1960's

  "If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music..." - Martin Luther King Jr.

****

The job that Joe landed was the beginning of a life that his family was quick to share with everyone. He was close to thirty and had lost a great deal of his productive years spent mending the arm he broke in a car accident. The scar and pain would always be a reminder. The job at the steel mill meant more money than he had ever been used to.

He had now a purpose to carry on. He was still the southerner in a big city. He would always have the desire to find out what the city had to offer. With his good looks finding beautiful women was not a problem. He quickly became popular among the women that he came in contact with. He would have many opportunities to have what most men wanted. Humble and kind as he was it was easy for him to be fooled and taken advantage of by women looking for the securities that they all wanted.

Beautiful, fun and worldly divorced women were what he found the most exciting. She was the daughter of a Ford Motor employee. Her father had moved the family her from Nallen, West Virginia. This was one of many things he had in common with his newly found hook-up. She had been introduced to him by mutual friends and quickly found that the attraction was something both of them longed for. She had been married to a foreigner that beat her regularly. He came from a culture that accepted the power of man over women. It was his temper along with his upbringing that made her the target of his punches. Her front tooth was false as a result of his temper.