Only God knows the number of
times I climbed up and down the three steps on the P-800 and P-1000 package
cars (panel trucks) which I drove for United Parcel Service during the twenty
years I served that illustrious company as a local delivery driver.
Going up it was right, left,
right. Going down it was left, right, left. (I can tell you, it was preferable
not to reverse ‘the order of march). Occasionally, but far too often for
comfort, I managed to injure myself on those shiny, silver aluminum steps. Once,
as I was about to step off the bottom landing, I dropped a roll of wall paper,
and summarily managed to step on it. The result of my trouble was a twisted
ankle. Another time I got in too big a hurry, and jumping up on the first step,
I …missed the first step. My shin, however, managed to connect with the edge of
said step, and I “put a hurtin’ on my lower tibia. I was rewarded with a nice,
bloody red dent below my right knee.
As I was delivering a couple of
packages to “Parker’s Canvas Awning” one day, circa 1990, and I was closing my
bulkhead, and preparing to navigate the first of three steps to the ground, I
accidently closed the door on my left pinky finger.
As Jackie Gleason might have
said, (and I, no doubt, thought)
“What a revolting development!”
I found myself standing in the
cab of old #59299 facing a steel bulkhead with the little finger of my left
hand securely intact inside the framework of the over-sized metal door.
And since the lock to the door
was on the left side, and my keys were in the opposite free hand which remained
to me, I found myself “between a rock and a hard place.”
And as Mrs. Faixfax in the
novel, “Jane Eyre” was prone to say,
“What to do? What to do?”
Pt. 2
While my memory of that event is
not as clear as it once was, it seems apparent at this juncture that I must
have screamed for assistance. At any rate, it was about this time that Mrs.
Parker made her appearance, and I attempted to help her help me by handing her
my bulkhead key, and instructing her to insert it in the wall lock with her
left hand, while pulling the door strap away from her with her right hand; to
no avail. For as much as she pulled, the bulkhead door refused to move. My stuck
finger somehow disallowed the door from coming away from the frame.
By now, I realized there was
only one thing to do. I began to pull my left pinky finger out, and towards my
body. I would either leave it in the door, or it would rejoin the remainder of
my anatomy.
However, I regret to report that
I pulled out a skeletal shadow of what my little finger had previously looked
like, and I left the majority of my flesh and blood inside the framework of the
door.
(Gotcha)!
Actually, by this time my left
pinky finger was 95% intact, and considering what it had endured, I think both
I, and Mrs. Parker were happy enough with the results.
Which brings me to the crux of
why I began to write this story in the first place.
Today I was visiting our county
historical library. You see, I had placed a rocking chair there for a WWI
exhibition. Not just any chair, but that of a famous general. But that’s a
whole ‘nother story; of which I have previously written.
As the case may be, as I
departed the building I noticed a UPS truck on the street on which I had parked
my trusty late model vehicle. And I found myself taken up with a sudden desire
to ‘bother’ the driver, but I hesitated. After all, several hundred thousand
United Parcel drivers are extremely busy during the Christmas season, and while
I’d faithfully performed the deed for twenty years, I realized he might easily
could have cared less.
Afterward
My friends, I’m happy to report,
I followed through with my inclination.
And while I didn’t end up
‘assuming the position’ in the seat of that particular delivery truck, I did
bound up those three aluminum steps, (without permission, I might say) and
greeted the brown-shirted gentleman whom I did not know, but who was sorting
shelf packages inside the bulkhead.
And, as you might imagine, I
bored the young man with my personal history of having worked for “the tightest
ship in the shipping business” for twenty years, and how it had been two
decades since I worked there. And he brought me up to date on the local drivers
which were still working, and which ones had only recently retired.
Did I mention?
Only this past week I had done
another “just one more time” with my other longest-lived job, the U.S.
military, and posed for a photo in a temporary personnel building; just across
the street from where I had performed that same role a full half century hence.
Apparently, this was “old home
week.”
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 74. Copyright pending
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