Just in case you were wondering
(and I am sure you were) today marks 196 days until my beloved hangs up his hard
hat, parks his safety boots, and turns in his final punch-card. Only 196 days to
go, and I am nowhere near ready for the change that is headed in my direction at
the speed of light.
I’ve been giving the matter a
great deal of thought, as you can imagine. This is going to be a huge adjustment
for both of us, and completely different than the one we’d imagined it would be,
just a decade ago.
Ten years ago, my husband still
loved his job, and really didn’t want to think about retiring at 65. He felt
certain, in fact, that all things being equal, he’d still be happy to work at 70
or even 75, that they would have to drag him away from his truck, kicking and
screaming.
The fact that he no longer
loves his job, and the added complications that COPD have brought to his life
changed things, of course. And while his bosses have known for several months
that his retirement was coming up, it has come to light that they’re a little
reluctant to see him go.
He’s still the go-to man when
something in the production line goes wrong and no one can figure out how to fix
it. They’ll ask him to supervise the repairs which he is happy to do. He just
can’t do that work himself anymore as it usually involves a lot of climbing up
and down stairs, and we’re talking a few dozen feet in the air. His boss told
him they didn’t know what they were going to do without him. Who was going to
train the younger ones coming on staff, in the proper way to do things? Last
year the company hired several new employees, and David spent some time training
every one of them.
There was a time he would have
been persuaded to put off retiring. As they continued to try and convince him to
do just that, he told them point blank: if they wanted him to stay that badly,
they could provide him transportation back and forth, to and from
work.
He doesn’t have a driver’s
license, and hasn’t for more than thirty-five years, a consequence of his
misspent youth. The long daily treks are too hard on me, and our daughter, who
has been driving him every day for the last several years, has had enough. The
distance is about 25 miles one way, so for my daughter or myself to chauffeur
him, that’s 100 miles a day. Personally, I don’t believe they’ll take him up on
his offer and that’s really just as well.
My husband, in his career, has
left his mark. He has trained several men who are now supervisors—some at his
own site (the boss directly below the plant manager being one), and some at
other sites throughout the province.
The main crushing plant that he
built himself, beginning some thirty years ago, has mostly been replaced now,
but it did the job for a couple of decades. And while all the equipment in the
production line is relatively new, the principles of how to turn big limestone
rocks into various gravel products remains the same. In this day and age, more
than ever, you have the case of people with a lot of book knowledge but no
practical experience designing systems that never seem work, straight out of the
gate.
But that’s the way it’s always
been, isn’t it?
So here we are, counting down
the days to something that not so long ago, really, seemed way, way off in the
distant future. It’s funny how that works, but I know it’s a common thing. So
common, in fact, that John Lennon once included that very observation in a
song.
Life really is what happens to
you while you’re busy making other plans.
Love,
Morgan
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