Custodial Engineers we were, and it was sweet

I don’t know about you, but I tend to date the memories of my life up to now by using markers such as: 1987 (year I graduated high school); 1992 (college); 1995 (year I moved to Louisville); and so on. This one is a post-high school memory, and although not very exciting, it still lingers in my cranium as one of the most memorable periods of time in my life.

The place was Burgin, Kentucky, population 1,000, not counting pets. The time, well, it is hard to believe but it was almost 19 years ago. I am only 36, and in the grand scheme of things I am quite young (no comments from you even younger folks), but when I look back at this time of my life it is hard to imagine that so much time has passed since then. I feel like a different person living a completely different life. High school was pretty fun; after high school was when the true fun started, though. After college is when it began to suck for a while, but that it another story I’ll save for another date.

My twin brother and I started working at Burgin High School – our alma mater, immediately after graduation. It was a summer job, a ways and means to achieve a much higher goal – greenback. We were working for the man. It’s not like the work was difficult, though. We would paint the outside of the school, railings, as well as classrooms; strip, mop and wax floors; and strip and varnish the basketball court. We were janitors, custodians, or, what we liked to call ourselves, Custodial Engineers. And it was sweet. Not because we didn’t like the work; I mean, c’mon, who wouldn’t like working for 15 cents over minimum wage? We’d had to have been idiots to refuse prime wages as these. It was sweet because we got to spend a lot of time together before college started (my brother was enrolled in a college a few hours away); it was sweet because we didn’t have too many cares in the world, except for what we were going to do after work; it was sweet because even though our work day started at 6am, we would not get there until 6:30am, and if you counted coffee and cigarette time we wouldn’t start until 7:15am. It was sweet because we were lazy as shit; taking the occasional (i.e., daily) break to nap whilst the other stood guard; it was sweet because the two other custodians were cool to work with and let us get away with bloody well anything; it was sweet because we “worked” from 6ish to 2pm, laid around for a couple hours, ate mom’s excellent dinner, and then proceeded to hang with friends until 1 or 2am, only to repeat the process all over again the next day; it was sweet because even though we were grumpy as hell at 6am, and even began punching each other outside the school one early morning, we got over it in about 10 minutes. After that, we smoked cigs and drink coffee and argued for an hour or so over who kicked whose ass:

Me (inhaling Marlboro reds smoke): Shut up, I kicked your ass!

Bruce (inhaling Winston smoke): Bull shit, I kicked your ass!

Smoke, Argue, Repeat. This tomfoolery went on for about two days.

Even though it sucked to get up early and paint walls or move shelves and eat PB & J every day, it was clearly one of the best summers of my life. Even though we got harassed incessantly by a group of love-struck 14 year-old girls who lived next door, it was a great job. Even though we had no idea at the time it would be some of the most defining days of our lives: One old world had just recently passed, only to graciously make way for a bigger, better one it its place - a world full of a seemingly unending array of choices and even more possibilities than that.

I love my life now, but there’s no telling what I wouldn’t do to relive one day back then, just to smell the small-town, summer air and not have an effin care in the world. I will be content to leave the past where it should be, though, for we all know things cannot be recreated no matter how hard you try.

Bruce and I worked two more summers at Burgin High School and the days started just as early, the pay was just as crappy, the hired help (ahem) was just as lazy, and mostly, the whole process was just as fun, but this one, this summer, was the summer that stood out in a long and ever increasing line of memories flowing about in my stream of consciousness, and, just like a fine wine, those memories tend to get sweeter and sweeter with each passing year.