Tag! Someone Else Can Be "It"

I remember.  I remember all too well, actually. I remember how safe and how comfortable my mom made the rest of us felt when she went to get her knee replaced. She shrugged it off as no bigger than the average dental appointment. And because she was so casual … so nonchalant about it, I guess I didn’t think about it as being a big deal. I mean – I realized that not everyone gets fake knees at any age, let alone in their 70s, but still … she didn’t seem even remotely concerned about the actual procedure OR the recovery and so the rest of the family didn’t … or, at least, I didn’t … consider anything outside of the “get surgery, recover, rehab, carry forth” circle. Naive? Perhaps. But if the individual going through the process is fine with everything, what was my getting too worked up gonna do, except to freak her out?

And a year or so later, she had the other knee replaced. And the combo of it being a now familiar process as well as the continued non-freak-out-ed-ness of the patient once again made it easier for those supporting her to keep it low-key.

Now keeping in mind that my mother’s personality tends to default to “comforter, safe-harborer, caregiver, listener of woes and burdens, lightener of troubles and cares”, it’s more than probable that she *was* completely freaked out and wasn’t going to bother the rest of us with her concerns or worries. But that kind of “keeping fears to yourself” thing can bring on ulcers, cause nightmares, etc. And what IS family for if not for leaning on? Maybe she felt that she’d lean too hard, or that we wouldn’t be able to provide enough strength to calm her fears.

In any event, I’ve always been more like my father than my mother. And I’ve had plenty of opportunity to prove it as of late. Keep my fears, worries, concerns to myself? Hell no! While being careful to suppress the urge to run about like a headless chicken (‘tho believe me I’ve had my missing cranium fowl moments), I feel I’ve been far more Drama-Queen-esque about the status quo than is necessary. Certainly more than my own mother was.

So when I was told today about coming off as “being brave” about something? I laughed. And not a polite “tut tut” bashful kind of laugh. No, it was a verbal explosion of a snort/guffaw combo. The truth of the matter is that I don’t know enough to be brave. I don’t even know enough to be in denial. Numbness maybe … yeah, I can safely say I’m numb. Tell me that I’m “handling everything so well” and I’ll respond – honestly – that I’m not handling a damn thing.

Yanno that child that closes their eyes and says “Ha ha - you can’t see me!”? That’s who I am. I’ll open my eyes at some point … but only when I’m ready.

"That" Day

I don't have a big, scary "where I was" story for September 11th, 2001.

I was getting ready for work.  I saw the reports on TV.  I continued to get ready for work because I didn't want to watch the events unfold in a loop all day (as they did ... for several days).  Also what was being shown wasn't happening anywhere close to me.  I was perfectly safe.

I drove my 3-mile non-bridge/tunnel commute and parked my car in a largely-empty parking lot.  I got to my desk, turned on my computer and listened to my voicemail - nothing dramatic was waiting for me.  I checked in with my parents and my sister (just to let them know I'd gone to work) and eventually would start calling sales team members, to see where they were and how they were doing and, mostly, to get them home as safely and easily as possible.

Having come from a large company, my boss and I had business practices that, as it turned out, came in real handy that day.  We had current cell phone numbers *and* at least one emergency contact number of a family member for each individual on our payroll.  Human Resources fought us for it, saying it was unnecessary and an invasion of privacy.  We countered that since we were paying for that cell phone, we had every right to cross-check the number to ensure we weren't being double-billed.  As for the additional contact number, cell phones frequently got lost or were left uncharged and service areas were NOT nation-wide.  Since I was in charge of keeping the 48-page org chart up-to-date (due to being the most advanced user of the application used to create it), I knew who we employed and who they reported to, even if they weren't in my department.

I remember sending out a blast email - without checking with management - to everyone who was a supervisor, saying (essentially) "here are the names and numbers of those who report to you.  Make contact with them to confirm their safety and location and send me an update by Noon PST."  I didn't have a plan as to what I'd do if anyone didn't get back to me, but it turned out to not be necessary.  Responses flooded in.  "All of Marketing is accounted for".  "Financial Services checking in as alright".  "IT has checked in."  "Human Resources is here".  I'd learn later that day that our CEO was sent this info from the head of HR, with no indication that she wasn't the originator of the effort.  I didn't care for her taking credit but I wasn't surprised by it.  (I learned later in the week that my own boss was forwarding the messages - with my action-to-be-taken request email - to the same CEO so, as it turned out, he knew about the background anyway.  I tried not to feel too smug about that when the head of HR was asked to leave later in the month.)

The biggest, most spread out team was mine ... Sales.  We had four regions and more than 50 team members.  The receptionist and I broke up the list and, starting with the East Coast, began dialing.  We'd get busy signals, or no answers, or recordings of "your call is unable to be completed at this time".  We had a travel report as to who was booked on which plane to be in what city to meet with whatever customer and started tracking our team that way.

Around lunch time, our management ordered out for lunch for everyone there who wanted to stay and help with locating staff.  Whoever wanted to go home was free to do so.  Most stayed because, I suspect, they didn't want to stare at the TV all day.  They wanted to DO something ... anything.  Staff that had never had the need to book travel were renting cars in cities everywhere to ensure that SOME kind of transportation would be available.  We didn't realize air travel would be halted, but we weren't having any luck getting through to re-route existing itineraries so we figured we'd just eat that cost if necessary and at least have a car waiting as a "last resort".

We accounted for all of our employees and, as luck would have it, renting the cars turned out to be a good move.  In the weeks to come, I'd see receipts with notes like "only reimburse 1/2 the gas since the guy we caught up with in Cleveland paid 1/2".  I don't think any life-long friendships were made in those times, but I know that strangers were kinder, quieter and a little more comforting in the weeks that followed.  I remember the sudden appearance of American flags ...a LOT of American Flags.

It's hard to believe that was a decade ago.  I'm glad I was a West-Coaster at the time, because it felt so removed and far away.  I'm glad I was younger when it happened ... that I had the patience and naivety to feel so safe and measured ... as though I'd done something like that before.

Today, I'm an East-Coaster.  I still haven't seen NYC.  I don't know that I need to.  I don't wanna lose that "so far away from me" feeling.

A Laborious Rambling

I looked it up.
Labor Day was the dream child of one Mr. Peter McGuire from the AFL (American Federation of Labor ... NOT American Football League).  Seems Mr. McGuire got the idea from the Canadians, who had an ALF (Annual Labor Festival ... NOT a brown, furry puppet).  Building from smaller state-wide observances, President Grover Cleveland signed it into Federal Law in 1894.  This was right about the time that the nation also started having white sales, too.  (*sigh* no ... not really.  Sarcasm just doesn't work on the Internet.)

Somewhere along the way, Labor Day also ushered in the new school year, the end of Summer, the last great BBQ and my mother's birthday.  As a kid, Labor Day also signaled the countdown of days until Halloween and then Christmas.

I have had jobs that have allowed me to not work on Labor Day and I've also had jobs that rewarded me/expected me to work on Labor Day.  Those who do not get Labor Day as a paid holiday tend to be quite bitter about it, as though those who don't labor on Labor Day are somehow undeserving of such luxury.  To which I reply "you forgot to ask me if I wanted fries with that order".

(Again ... sarcasm.  Mostly.)

My mother was employed for most of her life, with a few chosen exception periods of time to allow for the proper care and upbringing of her children.  She would have liked to have had more help from my father, I'm sure, but he worked about 10 days a month.

As a firefighter.

He averaged 10 24-hour watches each month ... sometimes less but most of the times more.  When he was home, there was a never-ending list of large tasks to do for the house and surrounding land:  Build a new fence and electrify it for the horses, continue to shore up the retaining wall, repaint the shed, take down the scaffolding on the back, insulate the attic, remodel the bathroom, fix the shingles that were put up wrong, re-tar the side driveway that leads to the back of the house oh, and in your spare time, could you borrow a backhoe and dig out underneath the dining room for that second garage you keep saying you really want.  They weren't exactly things my mom and her two challenging brats could do alone, so we did them as a family.

I don't remember a lot of family vacations but I remember helping my folks celebrate paying the last mortgage payment.  We maybe didn't camp or take ski-weekends, but we would go get Sunday Doughnuts together or one of us kids might be invited for a last-minute run to the hardware store.  We stayed home a lot but ... home was fun and big and there was lots to do and we all kept busy.  Hell, we didn't even have cable TV ... but we had critters and we had imagination.

I don't remember us having a lot of relaxing down-time but we spent years of weekends working on that land, building that fence, slopping that tar, and digging the second garage.  (That's NOT sarcasm.  We really did that.  It's why my parents have an upstairs garage and a downstairs garage.  We worked moving that dust and rock bucket-full by bucket-full so much that my sister and I still know the smell of the land and can both remember finding it in our ears and noses.  We worked so much that we ALL remember the time my mom challenged my uncle to an arm-wrestling match after our Thanksgiving meal to see who would do dishes ... and she unapologetically kicked his ass.)

Back to my dad.  It'd be easy to say that, based on days worked in a month, my father wasn't a "full-time" employee and maybe didn't *deserve* Labor Day off.  (An empty argument ... he didn't get it as a holiday anyway.  If it was on his regular watch schedule, he worked it.)  But there was no "Firefighters Day" to celebrate at the time.  (There is now - May 4th.  I looked that up, too.)

But I put this to you:  When your car is on fire ... when your child has stopped breathing at the mall ... when you're stuck in an elevator ... when the smoke from the kitchen gets to be too thick and you have to call someone for assistance, who shows up?  Look at an average emergency situation sometime and count the responders ... 9 times in 10 you'll see a firefighter.  It makes sense - they're local, they don't usually patrol outside of their district, and they're ALWAYS waiting for your call so the dispatch transfer doesn't eat up valuable time.  Next time you really need help, give your checkout clerk at the market - the one who feels he's EARNED Labor Day off - a call and see what happens.

And it's not just Labor Day, either.  I can count on one hand the number of Christmas Days we celebrated ON December 25th.  Family birthdays, Anniversaries, and pretty much all the other "special" days *still* have a 3-day window of happening within the ACTUAL day.  Old habits die hard.

So maybe Betty Bitter and Paulie Pissedoff should just take a moment from bagging groceries, pumping gas, driving their bus, working the takeout window, answering the help-desk, or whatever their supposedly thank-less job is, and look around.  Unemployment is STILL in the 8% average for the nation and if Betty and Paulie are that bent out of shape about working on a holiday that they feel must take a stand, they should do it somewhere else so the next person in line can take that job and be thankful for the opportunity.

The thing is that this country, like my parents home, was built by all sizes of hands.  If you don't wanna get yours dirty or feel like you deserve a pat on the back for just doing your job ... well I recently learned that Canada has an ALF for you.