When I first talked about Daddy's dream of owning and running his own mattress "shop" or "company," I described the little store front building in McFarland and most of the equipment Daddy bought to set up a mattress business. I think there are some of you, dear Readers of this blog, who may be related to some of the people who worked in that mattress business, and you may have heard about the Idiot Stick, which I haven't described before.
Wielding the Idiot Stick was the most unpleasant job in the whole business. My brothers and other young (or old) guys who worked for Daddy and had to do that job hated it with a passion. It was the lowest job on the roster. It was almost considered at best a rite of passage, and at worst a punishment for all your evil doings. Daddy looked at it as a necessary evil, a job that had to be done by someone and if he couldn't hire someone to do it, he would do it himself. (But only if he couldn't hire someone to do it...)
There must not have been any OSHA agencies, or whatever they are called, in those days. Certainly, had OSHA been around, they would have required some kind of masks to supply oxygen to the wielder of the Stick. My brothers were the first ones to be stuck with that job.
In the post called "Daddy's Dream... McFarland Mattress Company" I listed most of the equipment he procured to start the business. The Idiot Stick was left out of that list, and since several people who, as young men or boys, wielded the stick, who may now read this blog, I feel I owe it to them for their valiant efforts to describe how difficult and unpleasant that job was.
Note that most mattresses back then did not have metal springs inside, nor foam padding. Here is the process of making a cotton mattress in those days:
1. Cut and sew a fabric "tick" shaped like a large mattress-sized bag.
2. Leave an unsewn section in one end of it.
3. Tie the opening of the tick around the mouth of the cotton gin's "exit" opening.
4. Turn on the gin.
5. Throw cotton into the gin's receiving opening. This cotton could come from bales of cotton, but most often was from dirty old discarded mattresses.
6. Once the mattress tick was full, turn off the gin, and sew up the opening.
7. Pick up the Idiot Stick and beat the tar out of the big round fat bag of cotton until it flattened out to sort of resemble a mattress.
8. With foot-long needles threaded in the middle with twine, sew the "rolled" edge around the top side of the mattress. Flip it over, and sew the rolled edge around the other side.
9. Sew and tie the "tufts" in even rows in the middle of the mattress.
10. It's done. Now sell it.
Note: If you don't like doing the Idiot Stick part, too bad. It has to be done. Never mind that dust boils up into the air so thick that you can hardly breathe. Keep beating. A big round sack of dirty cotton cannot become a mattress until it's flattened into the shaped of a flat rectangle about six or eight inches thick. Never mind that you're coughing so hard that your eyes are squeezed closed and you can't see where you're hitting that nasty mattress. We know it's a hard job, but you can do it. It's gotta be done... Okay. You can wear a wet mask, and after you're done with the Idiot Stick, you can peel that muddy mask off your face, rinse it out in the lavatory and wash the dust out of your eyes...
Note 2: I personally never had to wield the Idiot Stick. I couldn't even stand to watch it be done. I had the privileged job of sewing the mattress ticks with the power machine. But don't worry. I won't even tell you that story...
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