By Erik Kay
"I have to remember:
He came from nothing.
He barely graduated high-school,
But not because of boyish behaviors
Like skipping class to play pool,
Or chase girls or drink beer
(Though he did do all of that).
My dad was a man at 16.
He skipped class to go to work
For a concrete crew captained
By old-school German immigrants
Who’d stop for a shot of schnapps
Every ten feet of concrete curb laid--
Trick is to drink twice
As much water as liquor,
So you don’t dehydrate.
But remember, this was before Bobcats--
We had to move all the concrete and stone
By hand before we could lay anything new.
My job was to wheelbarrow debris away
And, if the mixer couldn’t get there,
I’d wheelbarrow concrete back,
So you can imagine how thirsty I got.
See, you carry a wheelbarrow with your back and hands,
Not your arms. I’d wake up in the middle of the night
With my hands clenched so tight I couldn’t open them.
For forty years he did this work,
Though eventually with the benefit of a Bobcat,
To become worth near a million dollars. Only then
To lose half in his divorce,
And the rest to the great recession.
A knee with no cartilage
And three slipped discs, too.
Of course he was an angry S.O.B."
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