Wailin' Wheeler Is Dead

This episode deals with Truckie's problems keeping his younger brother in line and the return of Pa. With his father out of the house, Doobie has taken to drinking beer, dating, plus he has decided to quit school. He dreams, he tells his brother, that he's locked up in a room with blackboards and chalk. "Man, I'm dying of white lung,man." When Pa returns home, at a time when one of the younger children's duck, named Jonathan Livingston, is being buried, Truckie takes him aside to give him a beating while the kids sing "Rock of Ages" over the duck's grave. He agrees to let his father remain home provided he can trick Doobie into returning to school. He does so by siding with him and getting Doobie a tough job at the local steel mill. "Back-breaking work gives a man a lot of character and a slight stoop," he tell his son. Two more jobs follow, and young Doobie, beaten and wiser, has decided a classroom isn't so bad after all.