The summer of 1985 in central Georgia was hot. Steamy hot. The air was so thick you had to pull the humidity back like curtains to catch a breath. I had a summer job and was looking forward to putting some coin in my pocket. Remuneration for my services would be $3.35 per hour. More properly translated as minimum wage in the late 1980s.
I had been assigned a new job by my Dad that would make my friends seethe with jealousy at my new found success. Let me set the stage.
Dad started his own business. It was a sewing operation that manufactured apparel for brand names of the day. Business was growing and there was a need to expand the building and to hire more people. The construction project would soon be underway and Dad mentioned in earlier May that I would be part of the process. I said OK and forgot about it like any teenager might do. Besides, I played high school football and there was summer weight training to do. h He couldn’t possibly expect me to work all day AND participate is summer workouts.
Or could he?
Memorial Day and subsequently summer break arrived. Dad informed me that I was now gainfully employed. What? I hadn’t even applied for a job. I guess he did expect that I would work and participate in football weight lifting. I never knew my Dad was such a multi-tasker.
“Son, you will arrive at work at 7:30 to begin something very important. I need a good man that I can rely on to manage our grounds maintenance. More specifically, I need a manager of your caliber to oversee the area where the building will be expanded. You will be paid for your efforts, and I need it done right. No halfway. You’re in charge.”
Boy, howdy! How could it be that I had arrived at the top at only 14 years of age? I had been placed in management already!
I arrived at 7:20 A.M. on my first day. It was a steamy thick-heated day of a June summer morning in Georgia. I couldn’t drive as I was only fourteen, so I had taken the ride in for work with my Dad. When we hopped out of the car, I began to follow him into the building.
Dad said, “You won’t be in here. You’ll be around the end of the building.”
“Well…uh…. OK. What do I do?”
“Everything you need is already there. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes to review what needs to be done.”
He turned and entered the building and left me standing with the birds chirping. Hmmm. I swear Dad was smiling when he turned away from me. It wasn’t an evil serial killer type of grin. Think more like the Grinch grin when he got the “wonderfully awful idea” to steal Christmas.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. At least that’s what Shakespeare penned, and I can’t tell you how right he was.
I arrived around the corner of the building to find a steel tooth rake and a wheelbarrow. There was a shovel, saw, weed eater, and a host of other tools. I was sweating already and I hadn’t even lifted a finger. Just as I’m taking inventory the end door of the building opens.
Out walked the Grinch… I mean, out walked Dad listing out expectations of the project.
The whole lot had to be cleared. Manually. By hand. Weeds. Rocks. Trees. By hand. Manually. With the provided tools. By hand. Manually.
Did I say by hand? Yeah, manually.
The land had lots of rocks and smaller trees. The rocks would be used to line the drainage ditch I would be responsible for digging at the back of the property. Of course, these rocks would first have to be dug out and moved over to the area where the proposed ditch would be constructed. The trees were smaller, but they would be cut down and placed in a burn pile.
I noticed there was no one at the end of the building but me, so I asked would anyone be assisting me with the project being that I was the “manager” of the operation.
“No, just you.”
I thought quickly. Is this a joke? Dad looks serious though. What was l going to say?
“Umm, Dad. Uhh… couldn’t you… like… I mean, hire bulldozers and scrapers to clear this place out quickly?”
“I could. But I want you to do it. You will learn a lot this summer. You’ll never forget it. And it will carry you through life, too. Besides, you’ll earn some money that you can save for college and take your girlfriend to the movies.”
Girlfriend? What girlfriend? Dad getting all philosophical? What in the world was he talking about carrying me through life?
Well, long story made short, I reluctantly began to dig in. I dug out rocks and leveled the dirt with my steel tooth rake. I carried the rocks to my ditch staging area with my wheelbarrow. I cut down baby pine trees with my saw and built a burn pile that would have made the carbon emissions division of the EPA cringe. I chopped, dug, and pulled for three months and sweated down daily. Shirt soaking sweat. I single handedly pushed Gatorade stock up five points that summer. Sore back. Cuts and scrapes from the briars and brambles that I plowed through with my swing blade. Blistered hands from the shovel while digging the ditch.
By early August the area was really shaping up. I noticed my Dad coming out and just gazing around the area. Some of the other folks inside the building came out and commented on the job I was doing. A big swelling feeling started stirring inside of me. It felt good that people recognized the effort I put in and how it looked compared to before. It felt nice that I had saved close to $1000 over those work weeks. Not bad for a 14 year old in 1985.
“You did it, Tom. It looks great out here. It won’t be long now and construction will begin. Concrete floors will be poured right here where we stand. Son, this is what it takes to make it happen in life. This is how this country started. People worked their butts off and then worked some more. They didn’t give up or pout when it got hard. They pushed through without blaming someone else. If you want something in this life, nobody will give it to you. You work hard and take responsibility. Then work some more. And it feels good to accomplish something through hard work, right?”
I said nothing. I just smiled. Dad was right. I did learn a lot that summer. More than one can put into words. But if I had to try, I think it would go something like this.
The world needs a lot more shovel and swing blade and a lot less cell service.
