Only the Good Friday, January 22, 2010

Chapter Three excerpt......

After about a week being home from the war, I went back to work where I had been working before I left. Jackson Storage and Van lines, an Allied Van Lines agent. I was a furniture mover.

After I graduated High School, I worked full-time all Summer that year. In the Fall, I got a job at the moving company. The pay in September of 1967 for a Teamster Union mover was $3.17 an hour. I had been making about $2.25 an hour at the Jewel grocery store, another Union job.

My Brother worked at Jackson, but way the hell West of where we lived in West Chicago, Illinois. It was a small warehouse and trucking office and had only a few employees. My Brother talked to the Manager and he hired me. It was a good deal money wise and I was quite fortunate to get hired as the moving season was at its end for the year. Fall and Winter are the slowest months of the year.

I labored carrying furniture up and down stairs and into and out of trucks. I would return to Jackson Storage after I got out of the Army. I just automatically went back to my old job like I thought that was what I should do or something. The rule was that if you got drafted, your old place of employment was to hire you back at your old position and salary.

Before I went into the Army, I transferred to another way out west shop in Naperville, Illinois. So, when I got out, I went there. For some reason, I only had worked a few weeks and they came up with a couple of excuses of some technicality for why they didn’t have to keep me working. They said I quit and didn’t leave because I had gotten drafted.

I don’t remember the real reason. Let’s just say someone didn’t want me there, so, they said they didn’t have to give me my job back. So, this manager closer in towards the city, in Maywood said he needed help because his office was busy. He hired me and I went to work there. All this bullshit with the same company, Jackson Storage and Van.

This guy had a reputation for being a prick. Real professional and not real friendly, a business man. Harold Dunn was his name. I got a job in Maywood for the same company at the same pay. I worked there for a little over a year after I got out of the Army. I was working there when I met Barb.

I lived with my parents after I got out. they lived in a small house in Westchester, IL. They moved there after I went in the Army. They gave me a room, but it was evident from the start that my dad thought his children should be out on their own after reaching adulthood.

It didn’t take long for me to get into arguments with him about nothing and I moved on. I went to live with my sister in Suburban Palatine. She had a big house and plenty of room but a bastard of a husband who left me notes about how i should pay for the electricity and water consumption I used.

He was an accountant, so, he had it figured out to the penny and left me a note. The gutless asshole never sat down and talked about it to me. He just left a note. One night, when I got home late at night, I saw the note, read it, and immediately packed up and left. The party had started for me. My wandering, searching, trying to find out where I belong, where I should be, what I should be doing and how I would live my life would send me from adventure to adventure and fill me with experience from that moment forward.

.......End of excerpt



The preceding passage are words from a manuscript I have been writing over the years. It is a chronicle of my life that I hope to pass along to my Grand children. I envision them sitting and reading it to their children or maybe even writing a book about it. It’s nothing special to anyone but myself and the members of my family.

To be brutally honest, which I am, especially with myself, I didn't think I could come up with anything "Good" today as our family is going through some trying times. But I read this and realized that I have had struggles before and will have them in the future and I have endured.

What made me post this as an Only the Good Friday post today is that last paragraph. Much water has certainly flowed under the bridge since 1970. Forty years ago. I say it and wonder where the time has gone. I can’t look back at every moment of everyday, but I can look back and catch a brief glimpse of how I got where I am today by what I did on many a yesterday. But the bottom line is that life, being alive, is “Good”.

Sure, there have been trials and tribulations, breakthroughs and pressing problems, catastrophes and triumphs through the years. But time passes and things change. Seems like the bleaker the time, the better it gets with the passage of time. For moment to moment, life is “Good”. Working through the problems is “Good”. Learning how to help others is “Good”. Watching children grow, my own and my Grand children, is “Good”. Some learning and change happens by accident, some by precise planning. Making mistakes and then changing the outcome of that mistake. That’s “Good” too.

A simple message today about the “Good”. The “Good” in life, even when things aren’t looking so “Good”. Take a look around and feel it. Give yourself a thought about what has been “Good” and how you might steer today into something pleasant. That’s my goal for today on Only the Good Friday. Look for something "Good". Make something "Good" out of it, or out of any situation or any moment that you can find, whether it presents itself directly in front of me, or if I have to manufacture it in my mind. I hope your day is “Good” as well.

I know, this message is trite and somewhat repetitive. But I need to say these things, not so much to you, but to myself, to motivate and inspire myself to keep going. If I don't, well, I don't know what would happen if I don't, so I must. Like the story in the excerpt. It was gloom and doom. I had no job, then I had a job. The tide turned as time passed by. So it will be with the pains of living I am going through. Time will pass. And it will be "Good".

Only the Good Friday is the brainstorm of Shelly of This Eclectic Life blog. She is a fascinating storyteller and ambassador to her home state of Texas. Give her a visit and prepare to be entertained.

Peace to all