Places to do things Part II

PLACES TO WORK

I guess everyone’s ideas about places to work are shaped by early experiences. Thus I imaged a small parochial school as the ideal place to work. After all, that is what my father did and I idolized everything about him. But there were other places that stirred my imagination. My uncle and aunt ran the general store and it seemed very attractive to me to be behind a counter, preferably next to the chewing gum and candy. The local bank was owned by my uncle and it seemed quite sophisticated and easy to be a banker, but that attraction was tempered by the threat of bank robberies. It was the 1930’s and to this day I believe that Bonnie and Clyde checked out that bank. I quickly ruled out imitating my cousin who ran the garage because I knew nothing about fixing cars. And the welding, plow sharpening and horse shoeing that was done at the blacksmith shop by still another uncle came close to frightening me.

During the summer we picked cotton, responding to my father’s urging “In the field by sun-up!” I knew I didn’t want to do that. It was too hot and my hands moved way too slowly. I suffered the embarrassment of even my sister being able to pick more pounds of cotton in a day than I. It wasn’t much better at my Aunt Elizabeth’s chicken farm where my main task was scraping and carting off chicken droppings.

It was good that another set of cousins ran a country store and butcher shop. Restocking shelves was quite easy. Milking the cows allowed a lot of time for quiet reflection. De-worming wounds in the skin of sheep helped create empathy for all four-footed living things; even though every Thursday found me assisting in the butchering of many of them.

Later I got promoted to being a waiter after being the guy who peeled bucket after bucket of potatoes and carrots at Wukash Brother Cafe just off the campus of the University of Texas. That brought me close to fame as I stayed at the same rooming house as Bobby Layne who later became a famous Detroit Lion quarterback

After graduation from college I had an incredible string of great places to work. St. Paul Lutheran School in Tracy, CA with less than 100 pupils but a great supportive bunch of parents. The opportunity to open a new school in Glendale, Calif. Then on to Hong Kong which took me to the most fascinating places in the world to work from squatter huts on hillsides to the Queen’s birthday celebration at the Governor’s mansion…always with the great kindness of supportive and competent Chinese colleagues. Then a year long USA tour giving a missionary slide lectures, but also taking time to witness and reflect on those 17 Lutheran schools for blacks in a completely segregated South. Later work just added places and opportunities for testimony, teaching, worshiping and work-shopping all over the world including places as divergent as Helsinki and Karachi. Still it hasn’t stopped. I just returned from a month of teaching opportunities in six cities in South China. And almost every Sunday morning gives me a wonderful platform for teaching; the Adult Class at Calvary Lutheran Church in Solana Beach, California.

As I today read the paper and listen to colleagues mourn their unemployment or even being stuck in a place of work offering little reward beyond take home pay I am forever grateful for all those varied and wonderful places to work which mark the important milestones in my life.