More digging in the dirt.

I worked some summers for the Department of Public Works in my hometown. I was one of the jerky high school and college kids they hired on every summer to deal with the increased activity of the warm weather: cutting grass at the local parks, patching potholes, painting anything that looked like it could use it. Some of the regulars didn't care for us too much. Or maybe just not for me, since I was a good bit of a smartass. Some of the regulars of course thought it was a hoot, because it gave them an entirely new audience for any or all of the following: playing out rivalries with other regulars by proxy, practical jokes, longstanding complaints about the job structure, etc. I learned quite a bit, both practical and purely esoteric.

One thing I learned was that there were three backhoe operators. One of them could scrape the dirt off a one inch water line without touching the pipe; one of them was competent; and one of them caused everyone to scramble out of the hole when he got behind the backhoe controls.

The best backhoe operator, however, was also a bit of a curmudgeon with thick glasses and poorly fitting dentures and an unflappable conviction that any public health issues were basically hoaxes foisted upon us by the medical community, environmentalists, or the government. Cholesterol, for instance, was not a problem at all, nor was salt. This issue came up frequently since 9:30 a.m. meant breaktime and everyone settled down at a local greasy spoon for eggs, bacon, and toast for $1.19 or maybe $1.39 (look, it was 1989). He'd go on about doctors inventing problems to generate more business. Of course, some of the other regulars would goad him further, offering up a few stock phrases that they knew would get him really fired up. In fact, it was a good bet that once a week someone would ask him if he'd heard about the "new government health recommendations on [put some sort of foodstuff here]" just so they could hear him go off.

He was deadly serious into religion, although he didn't talk about it. His church believed in traditional tithing -- 10% of what you made -- and then there were crazy "fee structures" built into it: every few years was a special "tithing year" in which you had to give an additional 10%; there was a festival every so often that one other worker mockingly referred to as "the feast of the beast" at which you were expected to spend another 10%; and so on. I honestly don't understand how anyone working on those salaries could have afforded to belong to such a church, but it was old-school meet in someone's home true believer stuff.

One of the regulars told me the guy had been a regular hell-raiser before he got religion. He'd close bars down and invent new and different ways of combining swear words into formations previously not even dreamt of. I'm not sure what happened to cause his conversion, but it's always intrigued me. Maybe he did it to save his life. Who knows. If he wasn't ranting against the doctors, he almost never said a word.

Summer jobs only offer glimpses into other lives.