When I was 15, I worked after school and during the summers for Eddie Jones.
Eddie was about 40 years older than me. He was a sheet metal mechanic and had his shop in his back yard in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. Although county laws would never allow something like this today, or as Eddie was fond of saying, “I was grandfathered in.”
Sheet metal work, back then, was quite challenging. One would pick a 3′ x 7′ sheet of metal off of a pile on the floor and place it on a work table. From there it was figuring and measuring how to create an enclosure that would direct the air flow from the source to the desired location.
All of the machines had guards and were actually quite safe. I went to work everyday feeling confident I wasn’t going to loose a limb or be crushed beyond repair. This left me to focus on the raw edges of fresh cut metal. A slightly ragged edge can remove a chunk of skin in less than a split second.
Accidents like this were rare. Simple cuts that would leave a few drops of blood on work tables were somewhat common. If I heard Eddie say it once, I heard him a thousand times, “Wayne, are you leaking again?”
Right out of the blue, one day Eddie turn to me and said, “you know, Wayne, maybe you should go to the county and get a work permit.” This was my first introduction to a bureaucracy. I thought working was good, maybe I’ll get a few words of praise or maybe even the most endearing words any teenager wants to hear, “I’m proud of you son,” from my first encounter with a bureaucrat.
Nope, simply fill out this form, we’ll be in touch.
About 10 days later as I entered the shop for work, Eddie, sitting on his work stool slowly turns to me and said, “Wayne, I received this letter today from the county, and it says you can not work in a sheet metal shop until you are 16.”
Have you ever had the feeling that every single neuron in you is straining to the max to be as stoic as humanely possible, while at the same time tears are flowing down your cheeks, off of your chin and onto the floor?
There was a moment of silence as Eddie and I looked at each other. Slowly, Eddie balled up the letter and tossed it into the trash.
For the next three weeks I worked around his yard. Raking leaves, shoveling gravel into his drive way, washing and waxing his cars and trucks and painting a much needed picket fence.
Soon after, I was invited back into his shop and it was business as usual.