Ed and Ben

 

When I was in junior high (today they call it middle school) my dad took me to work every Saturday.  We drove sixteen miles into the country where I worked for an old lady who had a huge stone house and seven acres of grass to mow.  Miss Vogel paid me ten dollars a day.  In the summer of 1962, I got a job working for Barberry Sod Company.  They paid $1.50 an hour - much better than Miss Vogel.  Then in high school, I went to work for Harford Sod Company, which paid $1.50 per pallet of sod loaded.  On a good day. I could load 15 pallets, or $22.50.  I enjoyed earning all that I could and worked hard for my money.  But the sod company was a low-end employer.  Most of the adults working in the field were there because they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere.  Some were convicted felons, and some were on probation.  I’m not sure if my dad knew who was teaching his son a work ethic.  Ed was the jovial foremen who laughed at everything.  Sometimes he laughed so hard his upper false teeth would fall down.  And Ed was a chain smoker.  His steel-toed boots were never laced up and he always looked as if he had just gotten out of bed ... and a messy bed at that.  Old Ben operated the sod cutter while us teens loaded the pallets.  Ben rolled his own cigarettes.  I was fascinated with his cigarette-making skills … or the lack thereof.  After shaking out the proper amount of “Prince Albert” tobacco onto a cigarette paper, he would begin to roll the cigarette pushing escaping tobacco back into the ends of the growing roll.  After the cigarette was completed, he licked the paper to stick it together.  But of course, the spit made the paper impossible to burn.  He was forever re-lighting his damp cigarette.  Old Ben would run the sod cutter (which shook violently) while the smoldering damp cigarette hung out of his mouth.  Why he never dropped it, I’ll never know.  Although not much in the area of moral integrity, I learned to work from those two men.  They were diligent and trustworthy.  They gave a good day’s work for the wages that they earned.  They weren’t very bright, but they were proud of their high school work crew.  Ed would hold contests to see who could pick up the most sod in one day.  The winner got a free cold watermelon.  And then everyone else got free watermelon too.  Solomon said in Proverbs 14:23, “In all labour there is profit …”  Thank you, Ed and Ben, for working hard and for teaching this young teen to do the same.