A decade ago I did my Editor’ Comments on my neighbor Jorge,
who had a small company with 12 employees and a dozen pieces of equipment of
various sizes and indeterminate ages. Here’s what I said then:
I
got a call from Jorge, my contractor friend down the street, inviting me to his
annual Memorial Day barbecue. “Lots of cow and corn and things to ward off
scurvy and dehydration,” he explained. “Besides you’ll get to meet a few of my
Gulf War buddies and the families of the crew.” I couldn’t turn down an invite
like that.
The first thing I noticed when I moved into
the neighborhood was Jorge’s yard: an acre of unfenced, industrial-grade grass
providing grazing room to one or more pieces of heavy equipment; a pair of
inquisitive border collies; and a seemingly ever-changing collection of kids.
Other than the addition of 100 or so people on Memorial Day, there was little to
suggest anything other than business as usual-right down to the motor grader
that acted as a sort of centerpiece to the whole affair.
“Come
meet the folks,” Jorge said, grabbing me by the arm and propelling me amidst the
first of a dozen clumps of guests. Half an hour later, Jorge set me off on my
own-sink, swim, or be carved into man-sized chunks of cow by Siegfried, one of
Jorge’s crew I’d met before at a work site.
Siegfried
is quite possibly the largest man I’ve ever met, with not one ounce of fat to go
with what I guess to be 400 pounds of gristle, bone, muscle, and a goodly dose
of brains. “Hiya, John,” he called, waving me over to the barbecue pit where he
was performing delicate surgery with a machete. “Ready for some food?” I wasn’t
but wandered over, happy to see a familiar face.
“That’s
your grader over there, isn’t it?” I asked, recalling the ease with which he
turned what looked to me to be an impossible pile of dirt into an even roadway
with subtle slopes to carry the water away. “Yup,” he responded, “that’s Mo
Gator.” Then noting my blank look, he said, “Come, I’ll show you.” En route to
the grader, he whistled at a clump of five-year-olds, which immediately fell
apart and headed our way like a swarm of hornets. “Who’s that?” he asked them,
pointing at the grader. “Mo Gator,” the swarm answered in absolute unison,
resetting its course straight for the wonderful yellow
machine.
“Mo.Gator.Mo.Gator,”
they chanted, leaping up and down in unbridled glee just below the door to the
cab. There on the side of the cab in big letters were the words “Mo Gator”
stenciled neatly below a rough but compelling hand-painted picture of a
fat-wheeled alligator scraping dirt with his tail. “My son Siggy named him,” he
explained in a voice that told me everything there was to say about the
relationship of this giant of a man with the people and things he cared most
about. “He was a year old at the time and it was as close to ‘motor grader’ as
he could come.” Later, Siggy’s mother, Mary, provided an even deeper insight
into not only Siegfried, but Jorge and his whole crew.
“Look
at them,” she said as they were engaged in a hose fight with some of the older
kids. “They can be so serious and protective and yet turn right around and
behave like children. They all do, and Jorge lets ‘em do it—even encourages it.”
Spying Siggy climbing up on the frame of Mo Gator, she looked as if she were
going to call out to him to get down but then thought better of
it.
“Three
years ago, when things were touch-and-go with the business, Jorge called us all
together—the men, wives, children—and explained the situation.” Her face took on
a faraway look, then she straightened and continued. “That’s the way it is with
all the decisions. Jorge doesn’t bid a job without all of the men going out and
looking the site over. Nothing gets decided until they’ve all kicked the dirt
and had their say.” Again she sat thinking before a satisfied smile lit her
face. “You know what? We all knew we’d have to tighten our belts until more work
came along, but nobody thought about cutting out.”
Later,
after those of us who had seen combat took a turn remembering fallen comrades, I
felt a tug on my sleeve. “You hear how hard it is to keep good people?” Mary
asked. “Well it isn’t. Not when people know they’re part of a team. Not if you
know you’re needed just as much as anyone else.”
By last year Jorge’s company had grown to 25 employees and 22
machines, half of which were fewer than five years old. Today his crew has
shrunk by five and he’s pared his equipment by an equal amount, opting to
install machine-control systems to maintain his capability. Three of the five
“casualties” returned to school, and the other two returned to their family
farms in the Midwest, but every one of the original crew is still there.
I was gone over the Memorial Day weekend this year, so I
missed this year’s party, but I saw Mary at the market a couple of weeks later,
and she assured me that, aside from a few more embellishments, the fallen
comrades received their annual due and Mo Gator was still the center of
attraction, despite the addition of a modern grader with all the late-model
bells and whistles.
“We’re still all in it together,” she said with pride.
“Siggy’s fourteen now, so it’s nice to know there’ll be a job waiting for him
when he’s ready.”