Friday, March 31, 2023

100+ YEARS OF TOIL AND TROUBLE

 4035

Over the past 100+ years, or so I have involved myself in almost half that many jobs, vocations, advocations, and professions.

 

(Yeah. I have)

 

By this time, you are, no doubt, “doing the math.”

 

I can almost read your thoughts.

 

“While you might convince me that someone is capable of floating from one menial job to another, and during that time might “rack up” several dozen entries on his rather dismal resume, I’m sorry, I’m not believing anyone other than Methuselah or a mythological vampire would be capable of putting over a century into his career; once he or she had reached the age in which people normally fill out their first application.”

 

I expect my 4x great grandfather came as close any anyone I know, (other than yours truly) to making it happen. His is, to say the least, a compelling tale.

 

Old Isom Peacock was an anti-temperance Independent Baptist minister. He founded the first Protestant church in the State of Florida; which still boasts an active congregation today. It has been said that as Isom stood behind the pulpit, he sometimes pulled out a bottle of whiskey, would “chug a lug,” and sermonize about his freedom in Christ.

 

Well, my friends, I don’t know if the whiskey finally got him, or his mode of transportation. For you see, Rev. Peacock died at the grand old age of 108; falling off a horse! It might be rightly supposed that he died “drinking and riding.”

 

Although I can’t account for my great grandfather’s career choices before this event, be they many or be they few, at least the old boy was blessed with a very long life in which to fulfill the plans God dreamed for him; before He made the worlds.

 

Pt. 2

 

100+ years of toil and trouble.

 

And while I know there’s one God (and I’m not Him) by now perhaps a scripture comes to mind.

 

“Then the Jews said to Jesus,

 

‘You are not yet 50 years old, and yet you have seen Abraham?’”

 

(or)

 

“Here we have someone who can’t possibly have experienced all he claims to have experienced, and seen all that he claims to have seen, but in spite of his youth, this dude maintains he’s been around a very long time.”

 

100+ years of toil and trouble.

 

Yep. I’m as old as dirt. But I often tell my clients, (friends, relatives, grocery store cashiers, and anyone else who will listen), “I’m 30, as long as I avoid mirrors.”

 

To be sure, I’m not yet 70, and lest you’re close to bailing out on me, I suppose I ought to clear up the obvious discrepancy.

 

Yesterday, I was thinking about the long list of jobs, vocations, advocations and professions I have accumulated in a lifetime.

 

I was, apparently, quite an entrepreneur, as my initial undertaking was as a self-styled florist. The month was December and the year was among the first two or three of the sixth decade of the 20th century. I had been walking down an old two lane road near my country home, and as I passed a cemetery, I glanced up into an ancient oak tree, and noticed several large sprigs of mistletoe. I saw green. You know, the kind of green which includes the portraits of several dead presidents.

 

Making my way up the truck of the tree, and into its boughs, I broke three or four of the massive growths off a couple of the larger limbs, and set my course for home. Having arrived, I proceeded to break the mistletoe up into more manageable pieces, begged, borrowed or stole a ride to the nearest town, and peddled my wares in fifteen or twenty nearby businesses.

 

So far removed from the scene as I am now, I can’t give you a true accounting of my profits, but I definitely wasn’t tempted to change my name to ‘Donald Trump.’

 

Pt. 3

 

I have worked since I was in Junior High School. And speaking of flora and fauna, well, flora my first ‘real’ job was (drum roll) pulling weeds in “old man Pickens” humungous caladium field.

 

I would drag a bushel basket through the nasty muck in which the colorful leafy plants grew, and bending my back for hours at a time, I would jerk up handfuls of miscellaneous weeds, and drop them into the oversized receptacle. During the summer of my junior year, I worked as a laborer at one of the plentiful phosphate mines which ‘graced’ my local area.

 

And with the passing of years, I added pages to my dubious resume; that is, if I had bothered to compile a resume. (Which I assure you, I did not).

 

College janitor. Mine laborer x4. Coca-Cola bottle stacker. Vending machine attendant. Insulation blower. Utility hole digger. Asphalt laborer. Construction clerk. Irrigation pipe layer. Fruit picker. Newspaper subscription vendor. Short order fry cook. (Need I go on)?

 

Ultimately, I was nominated for the prestigious,

 

“Most Menial Nothing Burger of So-Called Jobs in the History of this or any Other Planet Award.”

 

(While I definitely made the short list, I’m still waiting to be notified of the date and place of the ceremony).

 

Immaturity Incarnate

 

Drifting from one menial position to another. To be fair, I managed to procure a few worthier, more professional “there there” vocations along the way.

 

Personnel clerk - U.S. Air Force. Personnel specialist - U.S. Army Civil Service. Shoe store manager. Associate pastor. University professor. Personnel Assistance Team supervisor - Army National Guard. United Parcel Service driver. Pastoral counselor.

 

Pt. 4

 

And speaking of the last three positions on the previous list, allow me to inform you that these vocations account for the nucleus of the 100+ years I referred to at the beginning of my account, and positions from whence I received (drum roll) two retirements.

 

35 years with the military; primarily reserve. 20 years at UPS. 30 years (and counting) as a pastoral counselor.

 

And by now you may realize that the foregoing vocations have overlapped, and that at one time or another, I was simultaneously involved in the pursuit of all these professions; to include the completion of two graduate degrees.

 

And while the accumulation of almost fifty jobs and professions, and over a century of sundry vocational experiences is, in the scheme of things, fairly singular, the wisdom of the same is, I think, rather questionable.

 

However, I’m glad to report that while I missed God, too many times and in too many places, “in the fullness of time” Providence allowed me to make a few “mid-course corrections,” set my feet on a firm place, and a loving Lord made the pathway clear before me.

 

Odd, but as I bring this reminiscence to a close, I am reminded of what I might characterize as my initial, though admittedly momentary advocation.

 

For you see, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Samson, nominated me to portray a particular incarnation of the Wizard of Oz; in the play by the same title.

 

I made my entre onto the elementary school stage ‘decked out’ in flames. (Well, rouge). I mean the gaudy red stuff covered every millimeter of my face; ‘from stem to stern.’

 

And, as you might imagine, my personification of that old pretender received a great deal of acclaim. (Well, giggles, laughter and joviality).

 

Apparently, my teacher had rehearsed me well since I never faltered, and my brief monologue echoed across the far recesses of the vast auditorium.

 

“I am Oz the great and the terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?”

 

While I can’t speak quite so unflinchingly about the caliber of many of my failed endeavors, I was, if for only a moment, a consummate actor.

 

If I’m ever called upon to do an encore presentation, I’ll be ready.

 

(Oh, I’ll keep you informed on the status of my afore-mentioned M.M.N.B.S.C.J.H.O.P. Award).

 by William McDonald, PhD

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