Millwoker

My father worked in the local paper mill where all the other kids' fathers worked. He hated "the stinking hell hole." I wasn't old enough to know what bothered him about this job, but now that I've had a long life of work, I know. Shiftwork.

Every week my father worked a different schedule: 7:00am - 3:00pm,  3:00pm - 11:00pm,  11:00pm - 7:00am.  Week after week his sleep pattern changed; he came back to a home with 5 kids, a wife, and a dog and all that entailed. He wasn't good at balancing the home life work; he never attended our ski races or plays, though I do remember him taking us to a restaurant for a breakfast of big blueberry muffins. In the summer after the night shift, he tried to sleep in the loft bedroom of our camp where the sun heated the roof top and the air stood stagnant. I'm sure his balcony bedroom at camp hovered most days at 80 degrees-plus.

While in college, I worked the night shift as a cop at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I drove to the oceanside beach community in the early evening and worked the 8:00pm to 4:00am shift. I usually made back to my fraternity house at about 6:00am. I'd lie in bed for a while and then crash. Some late mornings my friend Mike Abbott had his band Vehicle practice in the barn of our house. Vehicle had brass and sounded every bit like the group Chicago. There was no sleeping after they played 25 or 6 to 4. I was 20 years old and still those two summers had me walking in a haze. I can't imagine my father's life as a 50-year-old switching his bedtime every week throughout the year. I'm guessing he did better than I would have.  

Here's James Taylor playing Millworker. I always think of my father when listening to this song.

My parents' wedding picture.