Extra Job

 

My third summer of college (1970), I worked at Bata Shoe Company in Belcamp, Maryland.  My Uncle Damon got me a job on the night shift.  To make a little more money, I worked mornings with a contractor and slept in the afternoons.  Some mornings we graded building lots and I shoveled dirt for the bulldozer operator.  Other mornings we dug footers with a backhoe.  Twice we paved driveways with asphalt.  The roller, dump truck, and paver were noisy, so the boss used hand signals when he needed me to throw over an extra shovelful of asphalt.  He would hold up fingers indicating how many shovelfuls and point to where he wanted the shovelfuls to go.  He had a finger that had been cut off in an accident years earlier, and he would hold up that nub when he wanted half of a shovelful.  He turned his misfortune into his advantage.  Solomon said in Proverbs 8:33, “Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.”  Hey, that’s what we should do.  Be wise and learn from our mistakes.  Take the lemons that life gives you and turn them into lemonade.