11
The Ninety-Day RuleN
ineteen seventy-seven—it was a good year. I was
living in Cleveland, I had a two-bedroom apart-
ment, brand spanking new. I hadn’t quite gotten
the car I wanted, but I was working on it. And I had a job at
the Ford motor plant. They had a high hourly wage there, and
overtime—more money than a man of my stature could dream
of making. But more important, Ford had benefits. Thing is,
you had to be on the job for a while to get them. Oh, you could
get a paycheck, but you could not get the benefits; and as far as
any of the full-time regulars on the line were concerned, you