I had a lot of jobs in Los Angeles Harbor because our family was poor and my father was dead. My first job was ditchdigging a short time after I graduated from high school. Every night I couldn t sleep from the pain in my back. We were digging an excavation in an empty lot there wasn t any shade the sun came straight from a cloudless sky and I was down in that hole digging with two huskies who dug with a love for it always laughing and telling jokes laughing and smoking bitter tobacco.