Monday

1. Sunday's unexpected
2. Monday's unexpected
3. Dog Years
4. Ellen videos
5. Iron Man trailer/upcoming movies report
6. My Commission

My unexpected of Monday was a long time coming. Let me provide a little bit of background:

I started working at the age of 13. My mom and I moved to Oklahoma when I started the 8th grade. I'm not sure I am over the trauma of moving to a small town right in the middle of Jr. High when clicks have been created 8 years earlier and small town Jr. High kids are meaner and click-y-er than others. This may not be a fact, but from where I had come from, they weren't nearly like the people I encountered in this new Deliverance Country. Anyway, my mom went to work in a lumber yard for a kind man named Tom Sanders. Tom had been in the lumber business for quite awhile. The company was originally owned by his father and uncle, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He went off and became a college professor and, what do you know, ended up running the business anyway. I'm not sure all the events surrounding his come back to backwoods Oklahoma, but he did. He allowed me to work in his store in the office. I filed. I filed a lot. I filed and cleaned the break room and the bathrooms. I did all that for $20 a week. THAT'S RIGHT. In that day I thought I was rich. I would walk home from school, drop my bag off and head over to the lumber yard to alphabetize and file invoices. At the beginning of the month I had the job of assisting in the mailing of all the invoices. Cleaning the bathrooms was the worse part - mostly because it was mostly men in and out of that place . . . mostly men that had terrible chewing habits. The spitting involved in the chewing is not necessarily the bad part, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I worked for that man until I graduated from high school. I even had half days my senior year and went to work for him the rest of the day as part of a school to work program. That semester I tried to learn Auto CAD 12 . . . it was hard, and I don't think I made much headway, but as a landscape architect I used Auto CAD a lot, and I would like to think I was ahead of the curve due to my tinkering at 17. He was very kind to my mom and me. He gave me something to do after school and on weekends, gave me a chance to be around my mom a bit more, and to form friendships with other men that I would have never met otherwise. These men were hard men. They knew the value of hard work, and they were very rough around the edges - but they were there for me. They were like big brothers that knew how to work and how to teach me the value of work, but also they liked to have a bit of fun and how to teach me to have a bit of fun at work too. Rubber band fights were a common sight, as was the look that said, "That was fun, but go back to work now." Those are all things he did indirectly. He gave me a sense of accomplishment in a job well done, a work ethic (that is sometimes out of control), and taught me the value of a dollar. Directly he gave me money for my prom dress, gave my mom time off to come to see me in speech competitions, wrote a home run letter of recommendation, paid for me to go places and do things (but he always made me ask) . . . he was like an uncle to me. He was a tall, quiet man, who was respected by his employees and people all over town. His dad was still around the store a lot. He had an office upstairs by mine (well my office wasn't really an office as much as it was a closet with a table they built). He was awesome as well. He used his time to make stained glass projects. I didn't develop the hobby until later, but I wish now I had him around to help me out.

So Tom Sanders. I don't think I could list the ways he helped me, or was there for me, or encouraged me, etc. I would visit him on occasion after I left for college. Those visits tapered off to the point where I had not seen him in about 2 years. I was never in town when the store was open, and for some reason I didn't feel right about going by his house (hmmmm, doesn't that sound like me). So Monday I went by. The store was a bit different. I didn't really see anyone on the floor I recognized. They looked at me suspiciously. I was a stranger walking through like I had business there, and went straight for the office. No one stopped me, but I think they wanted to. I saw the accountant/secretary that I worked with. She was happy to see me. And then I saw him. The tall, gentle man that helped me get through part of my life. Time and grief (over the loss of his parents and one of his sons) had aged him, but he was still in there, the man I knew. We talked for awhile. Mostly about my life and where it was going (or not going). I didn't realize until I saw him how much I missed seeing him. It was good, it was unexpected, it was just what I needed.

There have been 2 other "Tom Sanders" people in my life, and seeing him after all that time made me grateful for those others who have come behind. I just hope I don't go another two years before I see him again, and I don't let time get away from me with the ones that I have in my life now.