Author Lv Dongping
"Tailor", as the name suggests, tailoring and sewing, making clothes. Later, it is called garment or garment making.
After the Cultural Revolution began, although I stopped going to school, I often dreamed about going to school. Everyone praised me and said that I had been a very good student since I was a child. Yes, I have always excelled in my studies, from elementary school to high school graduation, I am a member of the study committee, and my grades are among the best.
In the first few years of my junior high school, the brigade had studied and asked me to be an accountant or a private teacher, but for some reasons I failed to implement it.
In 1971, my fourth uncle was the secretary of the Party Committee of Fei County Normal School. I had the illusion to find him and wanted to go through the back door to continue school, but I couldn't. At that time, the students admitted to the school must be workers and peasants who have been recommended by the brigade, commune, and county levels, and have red and strong roots with cocoons on their hands, and their academic performance is no longer included in the assessment.
Later, I asked my fourth aunt to help me walk through the back door and buy a sewing machine. Because there was a shortage of supplies at that time, it was a big back door, and the people even had to go through the back door to buy daily necessities such as soap.
The sewing machine I bought was made in Qingdao, a worker and peasant brand, and cost one hundred and thirty-one yuan and three cents. After that, I began to use my rest time to make clothes for the people in the village. In order to do a good job in this craft, I also went to the back village to apprentice for a stage.
After I finished my studies, my master gave me a ruler, and I have always used that ruler, because whenever I use it, I will think of the master and remember the apprenticeship life, which I still keep.
The master is my uncle and fifth uncle, who was more than ninety years old last year, and he made a painting for me and hung it in my living room.
At that time, it was very cheap to make clothes by hand, zhongshan top seven cents, men's shirt four cents five cents, pants four cents, women's top six cents. At that time, I had no intention of making money, and everyone insisted on giving money when they took clothes, so I only collected enough money to buy lines, practiced my craft, and tried to be happy.
The people of the whole village were very enthusiastic, and slowly spread to the outer village, and they all came to me to make clothes. I could only get up early and get busy in the dark, because I had to do the big gang and push the cart as usual during the day. Although I was a little tired, it added a lot of fun to me and made a lot of friends. One of my best friends now, when I was in Beihe Village, was acquainted with Himechio, at that time.
My tailoring work is flourishing and everyone praises. One day, the brigade held a production meeting, and the main leader on the film was Liang Tipei. When liang Tipei was building the national defense highway in 1968, he was an instructor in the battalion, and I had given him a secretary, and I liked me very much. During the meeting, a person at that time said at the meeting that I was making clothes for everyone to practice capitalism and should be stopped. The participants did not accept her argument, and their hearts were indignant, and after the meeting was adjourned, some people secretly talked to me one by one.
In view of this situation, think about it, forget it! I can't afford to entangle with her, and since someone has brought it up, we can't afford to mess with people. Moreover, the general climate at that time was to cut the tail of capitalism and prefer socialist grass to capitalist seedlings. Besides, Liang Tipei, who is squatting, is so good to me, don't give people a problem.
That night, I unloaded the sewing machine, packed it, climbed the mountains and mountains, all the way up the left shoulder for the right shoulder, the right shoulder for the left shoulder, rest and walk, and before dawn I arrived at the back village thirty miles from home. It was the place where I apprenticed, and I asked my master to sell it, temporarily ending that period of my tailoring career.
However, this craft was not forgotten, and it was not until later when I was in the northeast that it came in handy. In those years, the adults and children in the tun came to me to make clothes, and I still used my rest time to make them for everyone, and all of them were free.
In those years, the whole country was full of gangs and cajoling. In winter, the northeast is cold and frozen, and farmers often accumulate fertilizer and plan manure in the climate of minus 30 or 40 degrees. Although I know that there is no benefit, I have to do it. In order to resist the cold, it is fashionable to wear a wool coat. But the job of making fur coats and fur coats is not available in the nearby tailor shops within a radius of tens of miles. Therefore, the front and back left and right tuns came to me to do it! At that time, I made a wool coat for eight yuan by hand, seven yuan for most of it, and six yuan for a short one, and I confiscated the money.
At that time, the family was poor and did not have a sewing machine. Whoever wants to do work will invite me to the house, I will cut it first and then use their sewing machine to do it. The people in their family helped me to spell the leather, nail and buckle or something, I was much more relaxed, and they were more at ease and happier. I confiscated the money, but the families welcomed me with enthusiasm. When my son was born, all the tuns came to help the poor, as if they were following the gifts, and there were also neighboring tuns. In addition to eggs, brown sugar, rice, noodles, oil, cloth, money, etc., there are also pots, stoves, shovels, pickaxes and other production utensils and living utensils. Originally, the four walls of the house had become complete!
Although this tailoring career is relatively short, it is still very fun to think about. At that time, in the northeast, some girls also pursued me because of this, but because my ideal of "settling down in the northeast for the whole family" was not realized, they did not consider it at all.
There are still some sewing jobs in the family that no one else can do, because I will!
(To be continued)