Here it is Columbus Day. While that sets the day apart for most folks, I am always reminded that it is the Birthday of one of my first and best out-of-the-family role models.
Back in 1969 I graduated from High School and needed a job for the summer. I signed on with the city street department in my home town, not really knowing what I was getting in to. The foreman assigned me to a truck with Walter Kelly. Kelly, as he perferred to be called, was an old Irishman, worked concrete his whole life, pouring, finishing and breaking it out. My job was to work along with this tough old man and try to keep up with him.
During that summer he taught me how to be a workman. That is, how to say YESSIR to the boss, dig dirt, mud, concrete and anything else with a #2 Shovel.......load 4-CY dumptrucks with that shovel, one after the other, and go home with no complaints.
He taught me how to sit on the curb and eat a real lunch out of a black iron lunch pail, best lunch in the world: a sandwich and "sauce"....pears or peaches in a little jar that got used over and over, and coffee, black, from a thermos.
He taught me to take my hat off and drop my shovel when a hearse and funeral drove by. I have seen this on other construction jobs but rarely these days. I still do it and it draws questions from other people around me. "That could be you there." Kelly'd say, "Take off your hat."
Kelly was a workman, a gentleman smelling of sweat and grease, hands like C-clamps, never a spare word in any conversation, and nary a shared opinion....."Think what ya' like.....we got work to do."
I'll never forget him though there aren't many left with any recollection of him, just a workingman......and one of my heros. Here's to you Kelly, Happy Birthday.
Piper
Back in 1969 I graduated from High School and needed a job for the summer. I signed on with the city street department in my home town, not really knowing what I was getting in to. The foreman assigned me to a truck with Walter Kelly. Kelly, as he perferred to be called, was an old Irishman, worked concrete his whole life, pouring, finishing and breaking it out. My job was to work along with this tough old man and try to keep up with him.
During that summer he taught me how to be a workman. That is, how to say YESSIR to the boss, dig dirt, mud, concrete and anything else with a #2 Shovel.......load 4-CY dumptrucks with that shovel, one after the other, and go home with no complaints.
He taught me how to sit on the curb and eat a real lunch out of a black iron lunch pail, best lunch in the world: a sandwich and "sauce"....pears or peaches in a little jar that got used over and over, and coffee, black, from a thermos.
He taught me to take my hat off and drop my shovel when a hearse and funeral drove by. I have seen this on other construction jobs but rarely these days. I still do it and it draws questions from other people around me. "That could be you there." Kelly'd say, "Take off your hat."
Kelly was a workman, a gentleman smelling of sweat and grease, hands like C-clamps, never a spare word in any conversation, and nary a shared opinion....."Think what ya' like.....we got work to do."
I'll never forget him though there aren't many left with any recollection of him, just a workingman......and one of my heros. Here's to you Kelly, Happy Birthday.
Piper
