Skinner At The International

By: Del Lonnquist

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“Herring Choker,” was the name given the son of a Swedish immigrant when he went to work at The International Window Cleaning Company of the Twin Cities. Other crew members also answered to names that would be considered Politically Incorrect in today's culture. Mexican Joe, Black Bill, Chippewa Charlie, Harry The Cat, and more. The ethnic names were carried like honorary titles by the men who risked their lives on the buildings in St. Paul. and Minneapolis. A new member of the crew was called Skinner until he proved he would clean every window instead of just “skinning by” if it wasn't too dirty. Some crew members would have been called the homeless of the fifties, only the term homeless had yet to be coined. Instead they were called drunks, winos, panhandlers and other less then polite names. Most had experienced a “flop” as they called a fall from a building. Their fall and survival gave them status among their co-workers. Herring Choker survived his fall from the sixth floor of the old Empire Bank Building. He attended night school at Brown Institute for radio announcing and tells his story 25 years later as a small town broadcast journalist invited to attend a news conference at the White House. These stories about the homeless of the 1950's bring new understanding about the homeless of today. MtSky Press