promotion

when president nixon was in office he and his economic people decided that the industry in the us needed to stop giving raises and perks . this was supposed to help the  economy. that little idea didnt last long. but it came at a time when feedlot cowboys were struggling financialy and needed every dime we could earn.
    when the freeze was put on there was a bunch of us at toveras that were pretty put out. we hadnt had a raise in two years and the cost of living was creeping up daily. besides entry fees at rodeos and jackpots were goin up!!
   the owners sent word down through sam that there would be no raises.  i remember him turning red in the face, his hands shaking and his temper taking control for a short period of time. we all wanted to be some place else, real quick, but sam would have none of it. he grabbed a phone and in just a few seconds he had mr. tovera on the line. he reminded him of our loyalty, and how we had been promised raises. he listened for a half minute or so  his face getting redder, then in a quiet but firm and stern voice said" if i loose one man over this ime going with him". then he hung the phone up and looked at all of us and told us he didnt blame us if we all walked out.  before he finished the phone was ringing. sam answered, listened for a second or so said good by and hung up.  book keeper be here tomorrow boys, will ya hang til then? we all agreed to wait until the bookkeeper got there. i dont think any of us had planned to leave, but no one vocalized it.
      next day when the book keeper got there sam called us all into the scale house to hear what he said. the book keeper had studied the ruling and said he found a loop hole. if you got promoted to a more responsible position you could recieve a raise in pay. so, gilbert was promoted from pen rider to head of the shipping dept. then pete was promoted from pen rider to head of the processing department.  i was promoted from barn manager(colt breaker) to pen rider! and ad was promoted to water truck manager. in this way we all got our 50 doller a month raise!! now this was all on paper because none of changed what we had been doin for four years. ya know the sad thing, i dont think sam got a raise. but he was ready to go to bat for the rest of us!!