This week is my stand by week. I am stuck staying close to home for a whole week. Just hanging out at the house waiting for the phone to ring, and for two nights there wasn't any ringing. Which can be both good and bad. Good, because at least I didn't have to wake up in the middle of the night to shut off a fire hydrant that has been ran over. Meaning standing under a waterfall to get to a valve and struggle to run it down. Bad, because I am stuck at home without getting paid. I figure that if I am going to have to limit what I can do for a week, I might as well be working more to make some overtime. At least it has finally picked up today. One call to go pick up some broken glass in the street, which can totally suck sometimes. I have had multiple instances where the glass has been spread all over a major intersection due to the traffic running over it. Meaning the cops have to basically shut down the intersection while I sweep it all up by myself. That is always fun, trying to hurry up for traffic and dodging the little traffic that is allowed through while I work. Especially with all the bad drivers here in Garden Grove. There are a ton of bad drivers. I find myself dodging traffic all the time while working on the streets.
My other call for the night was a call for water leaking into the street. It turned out to be a simple fix. Just a couple of bad gaskets for a water meter that needed to be replaced. While I was there, I got to talking with the owner of the house. It was an older Hispanic man who started asking about possible job openings where I work, which then led into how his English isn't as good as it could be. Which then led to him telling me about how he came here to America while a young man of about twenty. Coming to work and then go back to Mexico to help support his family. He would come over for ten months to work and head back home to Mexico for two months to take care of business. He did that for five years before becoming a permanent resident here. Working and learning English to become a citizen. Raising a family of at least two daughters that he told me about. He told me about his dream to come over and go to school and learn to improve himself. Work took precedent though, and he never got the opportunity he wanted to go to school and learn. Instead learning life lessons while working and supporting a family. Which makes him that much prouder of his daughters who are now teachers. He did become an American citizen at least. His name is Manuel and his story is similar to my own fathers. Which is what most of our conversation was about. He talked about himself and I talked about my dad's story.
My dad grew up in Mexico and came to America in his late teenage years to make money to help the family. He did that for a number of years, crossing the border illegally many times. My dad told me about all kinds of jobs he did back in those days. The common ones you would think of, such as strawberry picker and grape picker. Taxi driver. Tortilla truck driver and many others I can't remember at the moment. He worked hard to help out his family and eventually support his own immediate family consisting of him, my mother, myself and my two sisters. Eventually my dad came to stay in America where he met my mother. My dad worked very hard for many years to make ends meet. Eventually getting a job working for Los Angeles County as a street maintenance worker. He worked hard paving streets for many more years and eventually worked his way up as an inspector for the county. He didn't get to go to college, he learned on the job and improved himself any way he could. My dad is an amazing example for me to follow. A hard worker, a loving husband, a supporting father. If I can do half as well as my father has done, I will count that as a success.
I guess I should have saved this one for Father's Day. Oh well, it is what happened to pop in my head and my fingers just kept typing. I was just planning on talking about Manuel, until it led into me talking about my dad. One funny thing about this guy Manuel, is that he told me to say "Hello" to my dad, because his story was the same as his. Which made them part of the same kind of brotherhood or something. Whatever you want to call it. I can't remember the word he used, but he made a connection to my dad because of the conversation he had with me. You never know who you might meet or talk to.
This Day In History: 1986
The world's worst nuclear power plant accident occurs at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union when an explosion blows the lid off a reactor vessel. Fifty tons of radioactive material billowed into the atmosphere, thirty two people die within days, thousands more over the long run, and millions of acres of forest and farmland are contaminated.
Born This Day: 1933
Carol Burnett - American actress and comedian.
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
-David Hume
They really, truly are.
aww love it Dave, and way to go, Art!!! :)
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