The Night Shift

 

The summer after my second year of college (1969), I got a job at Bata Shoe Company in Bel Camp, Maryland.  It was the night shift, and I am not a night shift person.  But it was a job.  Day shift and afternoon shift worked eight hours with a half hour lunch leaving only six and a half hours for us to work on the night shift.  To make up for the lost time, night shift started at eight Sunday night and worked until eight Monday morning, which was brutal.  I tried to get a nap on Sunday afternoon, but it was hard to sleep before I needed to sleep.  But it was easy to sleep after being awake for twenty-four hours!  Monday morning after my shift was unbearable.  I was so sleepy driving my dad’s 1958 Volkswagen home that I swerved from side to side on the narrow road on the five-mile drive home.  I actually stopped once to just close my eyes for a moment.  When I woke, I had been asleep for fifteen minutes.  But that tiny nap gave me the rest that I needed to make it home.  My mother tried to entice me with breakfast, but I went straight to bed.  Within seconds, I was sleeping the most luxurious sleep I could recall.  Solomon Said it best in Ecclesiastes 5:12, “The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much …”  Well said, Solomon.  Your verse could be the theme verse of the night shift worker.