Now I'm Listening

You find the best advice from the most unusual sources.

I am currently working at a place that I haven’t been into for over ten years. It is amazing how quickly one slips back into the ‘old routines’ and so on. There are many new faces and an equal amount of old faces that soon become familiar again. There are old friends and there are old flavors of the other variety.

When I first worked there, I was 19 years old. I was assigned as a ‘helper’ to a ‘Mountain of a Man’ who had been there for quite some time. This dude made Grizzly Adams look like a clean cut Wall Street type. Everything about this guy was super sized… from his physical appearance to his very presence.

I often thanked God that this man took me under his wing as opposed to the other options. He made my first year in the industry a learning place and I have never forgotten that.

Over the years, I would see him as he continued to ‘drift in and out’ of the refinery. He was always that ‘giant of a man’, who you knew could crush you with one hand, should he be so inclined. Like I said, he had a presence.

On my return to this work place, I ran into him again, now some thirty + years later. He is not quite the towering giant that he once was. Time has worn him down a bit and he moves a little slower than he once did. But when I stopped to talk with him, he looked at me and in a second, his eyes got the same twinkle that I fondly remember as a 19 year old starting out in a career. We talked for a few moments and both moved on to what we were doing.

A few days later the occasion arose to have him come work in the area that I am working. I drove out to meet him and discussed what we were hoping to accomplish and frankly, to do some catching up. I was amazed what he recalled. He told me stuff about the old times that I had long forgotten.

He reflected that for years, he had often told others how amazed he was that I was always willing to climb up and down 100-foot towers to get whatever job needed to be done…completed. He commented that nothing short of a fire would have inspired him to do the same. He then said that about a year into the job, he realized I was just going down to have a cigarette.

A lot of people in my life have told, asked and pleaded with me to quit smoking. I have always taken the advice and direction with a certain amount of interest. I have yet to find the will to actually quit.

The other day I was driving through the plant and was waved down by my old friend. He asked for a ride to recover a forklift that he was sure was taken from the ‘rightful owner.’ He is very clear that all equipment is HIS when he needs it. He took a few minutes to pull his girth into my truck and off we went looking for that elusive forklift. As we drove along, he noticed the pack of ‘smokes’ in my truck.

He looked at me and said, “You know a few years back, and I ran into John O at the Big Scoop in town. (John O was a character all to himself and to us who knew him.) John told me that he had just quit smoking.” He went on to say, “I think it was too late. John died six months later of cancer.”

My giant friend then looked me in the eye and said. “You know a guy can probably keep smoking till he is 55 and after that…the body kinda breaks down. How old are you now?”

I told him I was 53.

He looked at me with such intense concern for a moment.

“Then you need to start getting ready to quit,” he said as he got out of my truck and slowly walked away..

I guess we never know what God’s messengers look like for sure.

Go Wide

Apr 22, 2:34 PM EDT
New Pope Has First Meeting with Cardinals by BRIAN MURPHY, AP Religion Writer

In a surprise move, the new Pope, Benny (with a whole bunch of numbers) announced he was planning on meeting with Denny Green, the Head Coach of the Arizona Cardinals. It seems the new Papal dude is a huge fan of the Cardinals and felt that with the departure of Emmet Smith, he might be able to try out with the team as a running back. In the event this was not a possibility, there is talk of his Eminence becoming the team mascot, since he has all the really ‘cool’ outfits.

This came as a huge shock to the New Orleans Saints, since they assumed they had the ‘inside track’ on signing the Pope to a 1-year contract as a float in one of the Mardi Gras parades. The Whiner will certainly keep all of you informed of the ongoing discussions. Should a deal be struck, there will be a smoke signal sent up by the local Navajo tribe to announce the selection of a new mascot.

There are some things a writer should just leave alone…the Big Two, of course, are: politics and religion. These would also be the two groups that do more to lull us into a false sense of well being while picking our pockets. That being said, I would like to wade into the arena of religion for just a moment.

I have spent almost every waking moment of my life attempting to get a grasp of who God is and how He fits into my life. I have been everything from a Born Again Christian to a Mormon. I have tried Shamanism, Buddhism, and have taken a run at Ron L. Hubbard’s Church of Scientology. In most cases, I have failed to achieve any true sense of finding an inner peace that seems to satisfy the relentless need to find God.

Through the years of reading the Bible and so on, I always get very confused on the Catholic Church. I’m never very clear who is ‘in charge.’ I sometimes think the main focus is on the Pope and so on. Not sure where God got shuffled off to, but it must have something to do with some sort of pecking order, I guess. I was reading the other day where a group of Catholics were flocking to a water stain in Chicago. It looked like the Virgin Mary. How odd?

You actually pray to a water stain to reach God? I have apparently made far too much of my search. I need to pay closer attention to the plumbing, perhaps? If this form of religion had more organizational layers, it would qualify as the IRS.

The other part I don’t get, can you really ‘head up’ a church by being elected? I mean at 78 years old? C’mon, you can be the leader of a religion and yet, you can’t figure out how to program your VCR?

But hey, I could be wrong.