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Hammer Time

I was completely fresh when I first began my shift on the road team doing construction and maintenance over the summer. Many of the things we did were completely new to me, and even those that weren’t had only been learned a few weeks earlier. Back at the shop in Red Deer I was teased from time to time for being too soft and unaccustomed to the work that was done there. Occasionally as I pounded at a dent or some jammed piece of equipment, someone would give me the encouraging “put your purse down and hit it!” Thankfully I enjoyed a good laugh with them.

Once on the road, I was suddenly faced with a lot more responsibility, opportunity to try some new things and to really work hard. I remember the first time being introduced to our work trailer, full of tools and parts, more or less orderly and organized. I distinctly remember seeing the big red tool box, with each drawer labelled in black marker. All the labels were fairly normal, except for the label on the drawer with the hammers, which read “HAMMER TIME”, in all capitals. I never quite understood the story behind it. To me, hammers seemed like a clumsy excuse for a tool that served hardly any purpose but to hit things. It wasn’t like we were carpenters and had nails to use. Why use a hammer when there were all sorts of complicated tools that did a far better and more efficient job? I very soon found out.

Work was messy. Motors and the parts to be assembled were nothing like the neat boxes of Lego sets that I grew up on, where everything fit and worked, just like the instructions. Here on the road, everything fit on paper, but we didn’t work on paper. Holes were routinely cut in belt guards (they were never the right size), bolts were constantly being replaced. I soon learned that just about anything that could be difficult and go wrong, did. And it was at these times, which were surprisingly frequent, that I was sent back to the trailer to grab a hammer. This happened again and again. We would be busily working away at something, hit a road block, and pretty soon it was time for the hammers to come out, to bash a piece into submission or force a part to where it should go. Hammer time again.

On the road, the hammer is one of the workman’s best friends. And very soon I saw its worth in the tool box. It didn’t just serve as a steel bully on the job, it stood for problem solving and making things work in a world that just didn’t. It was compromise, creativity and determination. One day I hope I’ll have a tool box, and when I do I’ll only label one drawer on the box; ‘Hammer Time’.

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College

College is such a strange thing. At times I think the only real purpose of college is to keep you busy for a number of years, until you are mature enough to deal with the requirements of life. You spend four years to get a piece of paper that says you spent that time doing something intelligent, and people respect that. Do they see these people in these classes? Do they see them walking the halls in pajama pants, living off of intravenous coffee ingestion and talking to their friends during most of a lecture. Are these the scholarly sages we present recognition to?

But drudgery is an excellent teacher. If not for the mundane academics of college, teachers would never learn how to be long-winded, dusty and rigid. No, they must walk the halls long enough, until they forget what sunshine looked like, how it felt to be a child. They forget how it felt to play outside, jump in puddles and lie in the grass. Then, and only then can they be handed the baton and sent off to teach these beings that they have spent long years estranging themselves from.

Having lived amongst desks for four or more years of their life, these objects become familiar – too familiar. The rigid lines of the classroom are the only world they know of learning. So used to being spoken to, when allowed to speak they ramble their ideas as if no one has ever stopped to ask them what they thought. Perhaps no one did. Silence has become their only way of survival, the air they feed off of to push their way through the books, papers and lectures. Why should they expect any different when they are finished? They spend long years sitting, listening, working – why can’t they expect the same of those they go on to teach?

But there is hope for some. Some wade their way through the confines and still remember what sunshine was like. They remember the carefree joys of play and the smell of fresh flowers. They learn – first to toil and labour amongst words, ideas and ideologies, spreading out life in papers so thin that they lose their taste at all. They do all this, and then learn again. They learn to live, breathe, smile and to stop to watch the sun set. Life comes back like blood in a cold arm held too tightly, or warmth in cheeks exposed too long to the chill wind. They live again – fueled by the pain of their sentence and bursting for joy at their freedom.

I only hope that this will be my story too.

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“Brighter Tomorrow Meal”

The “Brighter Tomorrow Meal”. A meal usually consisting of scraps of food from the fridge that would not and, perhaps should not, be put together and ever called a meal. This meal is usually built on childish hopes that the following day will bring better meal planning and may even yield a meal one would consider worthy of showing to their mother. The “Brighter Tomorrow” meal is one that should be kept to oneself, as people around may worry after hearing of this hapless meal. It should also be noted that consecutive or repeated use of this meal may result in malnutrition, weight loss, and sometimes death. As a result, most doctors and loving mothers would strongly advise proper meal-planning with healthy food sources.

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Books: My Vice

My grandma helps out at a local thrift store here in Three Hills, run by a number of elderly volunteers from the community. Often, if I am around on break, I will go over with her and help to move some of the larger things, before busying myself with sorting the various books that come in. Unfortunately, while it is a truly enjoyable experience, it’s very dangerous for me. I will rarely make it out of there at the end of the morning without a small stack of books I decided to keep. As a result, I have a slowly growing library on the shelves beside my bed and I dread the day I will ever have to move.

Considering my plans for the future, sometimes I fear I may never be able to enjoy my books at all. I’m not even sure if I will ever own a house in Canada, and therefore will have no place to put them. Or if I do ever buy a house here, the reality is that most of my years will probably be spent away from it. However, I won’t let it get in my way. If I ever have to give up my books, I really won’t mind losing most of them. I do hope I will have some place to keep them, but if not, perhaps they’ll serve a purpose as firewood someday. So, with the recent talk of zombie apocalypse or other global catastrophes, I will be prepared. If the sun freezes over, there’s plenty of books in my room to keep a fire going and at least survive long enough to make a cool movie of it. And if a tyrannical dictator shows up and all the books in the world are being burned and destroyed, don’t tell anyone, but I have enough Bibles to supply a small multilingual church.

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The journey is more important than the destination

My four-year-old cousin and I play quite a few games together when I visit from college. He is really quite a smart little guy, so most of the time I try hard to beat him at his games – and usually do. He’s quite a sore loser, so I’ve taken it upon myself to give him lots of practice.

Yesterday we were playing Rummikub, by his own rules, of course. It was very much like Calvinball in many ways, for those who know how Calvinball is played. Ben would dump all the tiles out on the floor and tell me we could choose whatever tiles we liked. Then, once our racks were full, we began to play out our tiles a few at a time – the only real rule being that the tiles had to connect numerically with others in runs. But if one of us wasn’t able to play, he could easily pull a tile from the large pile, clearly visible to all.

In many ways, it was a very relaxing experience. Without any rules, clear objectives, or competition, the focus took a complete change. Instead of worrying about what we were trying to do or a point we were trying to reach, the entire enjoyment of the game came simply from the experience – just from playing. I think there’s something that needs to be learned from this kind of attitude – one where the journey is more important than the destination.

I have seen that phrase quoted often, but have never really understood it. Of course the destination is more important than the journey! Why bother going somewhere if you don’t care to get there? All that I could think of was the long trips in the mountains of Pakistan, where your bottom would ache for hours on end, and where the destination was pure relief – a chance to lie on your front and give your sore bottom a much-needed rest.

I think a great deal of our North American, or perhaps human, culture moves away from this kind of thinking. We focus so much on objectives and gain, that sometimes we forget to enjoy the moment. We get lost in the effort to go somewhere that we forget to enjoy here and now. We will strain so hard towards the peak that we forget to enjoy the climb and smell the flowers.