Reminiscing
I had a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with an old ironworker who I've known professionally for more than 25 years.
I just can't believe I have been roaming around the construction areas for that long.
In any regard we both know just about every single person who's worn a hardhat around Western New York, and we had a chance to exchange:
"Remember when," stories.
And we laughed a lot.
"Remember when you guys were doing a job at the salt mine in Mt. Morris," I began. "The job was about a mile away from the job trailers and I just skipped the visit to the trailers and walked right to the job. Tommy was the foreman and after I reviewed everything he asked me if I'd been to the job trailer.
'You gotta' go,' he said. 'The prettiest girl I've ever seen works there.'
"I was skeptical. I figured I'd see the anti-prettiest girl in the world, but I couldn't pass up the chance. I drove to the trailers and had my hand on the doorknob when it opened suddenly.
The girl in question was standing a mere six inches from me...and Tommy hadn't been lying. The girl looked at me. I looked at her, and she said 'Can I help you?'
I said, 'hummana-hummana-hummana' and almost fell over backwards. The girl just started laughing.
Without an understandable word from me I shared a long laugh with the prettiest girl in the world."
(And then I met my wife, of course, and the point was moot - she was no Kathy Fazzolari)
We swapped story after story.
All the long, hard work days had suddenly been transformed into beautiful memories and thoughts of how great it had once been.
"The construction field used to be a blast," my buddy said. "We all worked hard, drank hard and broke every damn rule there was."
It was true.
"We made a lot more money in those days too, relatively speaking."
And it was true.
"Then insurance and lawyers and greed got in the way," he said. "Now it just sucks."
And that is mostly true.
We talked about fallen friends, and lost jobs as well.
As I stood up to leave I said the truest words I'd spoken all day:
"That was the most fun I've had in construction in the last 5 years."
On the very next job I met the guy who had been my very first foreman back on my very first real construction job when I almost single-handily built the McKinley Mall.
We shook hands. Aldo is an off-the-boat-Italian. He has long since retired.
He remembered me.
"You were the dumbest son-of-a-bitch I ever met," he said.
We laughed.
I just can't believe I have been roaming around the construction areas for that long.
In any regard we both know just about every single person who's worn a hardhat around Western New York, and we had a chance to exchange:
"Remember when," stories.
And we laughed a lot.
"Remember when you guys were doing a job at the salt mine in Mt. Morris," I began. "The job was about a mile away from the job trailers and I just skipped the visit to the trailers and walked right to the job. Tommy was the foreman and after I reviewed everything he asked me if I'd been to the job trailer.
'You gotta' go,' he said. 'The prettiest girl I've ever seen works there.'
"I was skeptical. I figured I'd see the anti-prettiest girl in the world, but I couldn't pass up the chance. I drove to the trailers and had my hand on the doorknob when it opened suddenly.
The girl in question was standing a mere six inches from me...and Tommy hadn't been lying. The girl looked at me. I looked at her, and she said 'Can I help you?'
I said, 'hummana-hummana-hummana' and almost fell over backwards. The girl just started laughing.
Without an understandable word from me I shared a long laugh with the prettiest girl in the world."
(And then I met my wife, of course, and the point was moot - she was no Kathy Fazzolari)
We swapped story after story.
All the long, hard work days had suddenly been transformed into beautiful memories and thoughts of how great it had once been.
"The construction field used to be a blast," my buddy said. "We all worked hard, drank hard and broke every damn rule there was."
It was true.
"We made a lot more money in those days too, relatively speaking."
And it was true.
"Then insurance and lawyers and greed got in the way," he said. "Now it just sucks."
And that is mostly true.
We talked about fallen friends, and lost jobs as well.
As I stood up to leave I said the truest words I'd spoken all day:
"That was the most fun I've had in construction in the last 5 years."
On the very next job I met the guy who had been my very first foreman back on my very first real construction job when I almost single-handily built the McKinley Mall.
We shook hands. Aldo is an off-the-boat-Italian. He has long since retired.
He remembered me.
"You were the dumbest son-of-a-bitch I ever met," he said.
We laughed.
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