My Texas Summer
Between my sophomore and junior year in college, I decided that I really wanted a state-of-the-art computer so that I could render my 3D animations faster. I was never very good at 3d modelling and animation, and like many amateurs in a field do when they want quick progress in their skills, I blamed
my tools. To pay for the beast of a computer that I desired, I would need to earn almost $3000. Graciously, my stepfather offered to hire me as a yard hand at his hardware store and lumber yard. The catch? The store was in a tiny little town in the Panhandle of Texas, smack in the middle of oil and cotton country.
Despite my feelings on nepotism, I took the job. My stepfather warned me that he wouldn't give me special treatment, and that he fully intended that this job "build character." He was always saying that about anything we kids didn't want to do. It was both his catch phrase and his battle cry.
By the time I arrived from school, I was terrified of what the job meant, but I had already bought the computer in an agreement with my mother. My biweekly paychecks would go directly to her through the summer until I had paid off the machine. I could spend $50 from each paycheck as I liked. Unfortunately, I liked to spend it on lunchtime McDonalds runs. But I had my sleek new computer to pass the time after work, and my parents provided a place to say and food to eat, so my needs were met.
I rode to work with Mike, my stepfather, every morning not long after the sun came up. We were generally the first people at the store and the last to leave. I wore neatly pressed short-sleeved button-up shirts, brand new blue jeans, and my first and only pair of work boots. I carried a measuring tape and a grease pencil at all times. I felt ready for war.
The only war I really fought was one against the heat. It was one of the hottest summers in the history of Texas, and my primary task was unloading and loading lumber from the yard--from the tractor trailer beds with a forklift, and into the beds of pick-up trucks that cost more than a year at my fancy liberal arts college. All of this, for 9 hours a day, in 106 degree temperature.
I toughed it out. The other yard hands called me "Junior" and were immediately suspicious of me because of my relationship to the Boss. The assistant managers went easiest on me, but that wasn't much. I was treated the same and given the same tasks as the experienced yard hands, and expected to perform. It took me hours to learn to drive the forklift properly, and I ruined several pallets of concrete mix in the process.
At the end of the day, after standing for so long, my feet had swollen to times and a half their normal size. I soaked in hot water, gloried in the air conditioning, and if I could stay awake long enough, I played a computer game or two before heading to an early bed.
The best part of the job was the conversation. I'm not a sociable person now, and I was even less then, but the stories that my coworkers told, as we worked together, made the day go faster. Stories of building windmills in Oklahoma--stories of magical white rabbits in Mexico. Riebald stories, racist jokes, sometimes.
The customers were mostly local contractors, and few of them had any use for me. They seemed to smell "college boy" on me and kept their distance. Except for one rotund, white-haired fellow with a deep southern accent. He delighted in putting me to work, sorting through the 2x4s, looking for the least warped boards, all the while calling me a "damned Yankee" and complaining bitterly about how the Japanese had bought all of the best lumber in the country.
One customer was a famous writer, well known for writing a series of Children's books about a cowdog named Hank. Once, while he was in puchasing supplies for his ranch, I nervously mentioned that I was a writer too. It was like someone had flipped a switch labeled "attention" inside his mind. His eyes focused on me sharply, and he asked me several questions about my work. The intensity he gave off frightened me, but I think I know what it must be like, living as the only writer for five hundred miles. I think he just wanted someone to talk shop with. My step father said that he would ask after me from time to time after I went back to school. I wish now, these years later, that I had been less frightened of him. I think we could have been friends.
At the end of the summer, I hadn't lost any weight, but I had trimmed some fat and replaced it with muscle. I didn't build much character that I didn't already have, but it did reinforce within me a very strong desire to never work a manual labor job again if I could avoid it.
The computer fell behind the curve within a few years, as they do, but with it, I launched a business in web design. I eventually traded it to a friend in return for mowing my lawn for a summer. A machine bought with hard labor, traded for a reprieve from it. It just felt right.