Passing It Along

For a couple of summers during high school I worked for the city.  I guess their official name is the city utilities, or something like that.  Today they would call what I did 'weeds and seeds'.  We cut grass and brush, and a lot of it.  It was way before weed eaters came along and I got to be pretty handy with a sling blade and a briar scythe.

Each morning before work we would all gather in a little room in the basement of the utilities building,  It wasn't fancy, just functional.  Amongst some tools and other essential clutter, there were wooden benches along different walls.  The teenagers would gather on one bench, and the older crew would sit on the other.

Mostly, the teenagers dozed while the regular crew sat and talked.  They all looked very much alike.  Older, at least mid 50s with some well into their 60s.  They wore bib overalls or work pants, a work shirt and brogans.  Above the brogans you could see the top of their white socks rolled down at the top.  That was the way my grand dad wore his socks.

Most of them smoked unfiltered cigarettes or roll-your-owns, and one of them usually had a wad of tobacco in his cheek.  They sipped their coffee and talked about the latest news around town, or maybe politics in Nashville or Washington, but never about anyplace else in the world, unless one of them knew a local 'boy' in Vietnam.

But the talking didn't last long.  When the time came to start work, they were out the door in a flash.  Of course, all they had to do was drive the trucks, the teenagers did all the lifting and loading and unloading, but I figured they had earned the right to the jobs they had.  They all wore the signs of doing what we did, but for a much longer stretch.

The best part of the job was the little nuggets of advice they gave us.   They covered everything from women, to what kind of job to get, what was the best car, and where in town or the county we should look for a house; which was usually where they had a friend or a family member with one for sell.

They were good men filling a niche, who were happy to pass along advice, and for the most part the teenagers seemed happy to listen to them.  It seemed to be the logical progression of things.

I started thinking about this today, because I came to the realization that I was one of those men now, or at least close to it.  I work in an office where most of the younger folks are way ahead of where I was at that age.  I may have experience, but they have a lot more knowledge and skills than I do from being weaned on computers from almost the time they learned to walk.

I had a similar feeling when I retired from the Air Force.  When I started bumping into more and more troops who were born after I had enlisted, I knew it was time for me to start thinking about retiring.