The Squash Tree

I was a laborer for twelve years. Not that we all don't labor, I just meant that for a long time I held jobs that required a certain amount of dirt to be on your clothes at the end of the day. I did not have my first non-dirt acquiring job until I was thirty. Like some men are groomed to be king, I was groomed to perform mindless physical tasks for long clips of time, often under harsh conditions. From the time that I could throw a stick of firewood on the back of my dad's old Ford 10 model pickup truck, I have been working. For most of his life my dad has been in the tree removal business, although he prefers to be called a salesman of forestry products. Before he was a tree man, dad sold cars for commission at the big Hub Ford Motor Company that use to be at the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree in Buckhead. After five years of taking orders from the head screw, Mr. Megel, dad started his own business cutting trees with his friend Larry Larson. One summer dad took off from the tree business to try his hand at being a farmer (like his dad). He leased some farmland on Cumming Street, and decided to plant row after mile-long row of crookneck yellow squash. Many dog-hot weekend mornings found the Shirley family (minus Mom) dragging a hoe or a bushel basket down the long, soft, and dusty rows of that field. Once my brother refused to work and ran off crying into a nearby cornfield to hide. I ended up doing his share of work that day for not taking his lead. Another time, my military-obsessed father bargained that if my brother and I got crew cuts then we did not have to work in the field that day. It was 1978, and no one, and I mean NO_ONE had short hair. There was no way that I was going to get a geeky crew cut (especially with a face full of pimples too), so I kept on working. My brother, however, opted out (no surprise) and my dad and he set out to find a barbershop that was open on a Sunday. I stayed in the field that day until all my baskets were filled with squash, emptied my boots of dirt and set out on foot to go home and eat some lunch. When I got there my father and brother were watching a football game with the air-conditioning on and eating a sandwich. My brother hair was still intact. It was at this point in my life that I realized that I may not be dad's favorite. Allot of sons want to grow up and join the same profession as dad. For instance, my friend’s dad was a design artist, so he grew up to be a design artist. Another friend's dad had his own electrical shop; now my friend's dad has retired and he runs the shop himself. I too was no different than them. I wanted to be a tree man like my dad. There was one problem, he never taught me how to do anything. He refused to let me climb; it was too dangerous. He refused to let me run a chainsaw; it was too dangerous. He refused to show me how to bid jobs because, well because...hell I don't know. There was one thing that I could do, and that was load the truck with wood and brush. So, when it came time for me to go out into the big world (and that was too soon), the only thing that I had to offer was my back. So I began to work my way through a seemingly endless stream of bad jobs. Here are some of the things that I have done:

Cut grass (miles of it , all day long. Once wore out a pair of new shoes in a month)
pick up trash
dig holes
load trucks
pull wire
clean bathrooms
paint
muck out ponds
work in a nursery ( the plant kind )

Although most of my labor-type jobs did NOT provide enough money for me to pay my bills on a regular basis, they did give me something that I did not anticipate...they humbled me. Those shitty jobs helped a notorious dreamer to put his feet on the ground. They gave me a sense of humor and a calm to work through uncomfortable situations. In way those jobs were preparing me for the day, when I could put on a clean shirt in the morning and it still be clean when I got home (well relatively so). I don't miss busting my ass for a living, and I have grown too fat and out of shape to even think such a thing. My life has become soft and comfortable. Sometimes on my way to lunch, I'll pass one of the landscapers from the office complex raking leaves or blowing the sidewalk. As I walk by him I try telepathically to send him a message, "Psst, I am one of you....shhhhhh, it’s our secret".