I learned my trade from one of the vilest people one could ever have the displeasure of working with. There was nothing sacred to Melvin and his vocabulary could peel the wallpaper off of a wall. Yet I owe my work ethic to him, rules I follow and pass on to my assistants---though not quite so colorfully...
1. Git yer own @#$%& tools and take care o' 'em @#$%& it!
2. Don't come here @#$%& drunk or high 'cuz I'll send yer dope smokin' hippy @#%%& back where ya come from!
3. What the @#$%& you mean comin' in at this hour?!
4. What kinda cluster @#$%& is this? Take it apart and do it again 'fore I dock yer @#$%&!
Great oogly moogly, how I learned the hard way not to tell him I had a girlfriend...
He more than likely owned a Model 9N, but this one is close enough, he used it all around the amusement park we worked at.
Some years later I ran into him and I could tell he remembered not only who I was, but how he treated me. He was looking to see how well I remembered but God had already done His work in my heart by that time and I was simply grateful to see that Mel was alive and doing OK. We had a good talk and the peace was made, enough for a good laugh or two.
I doubt he's even alive now, he looked pretty gaunt, the kind of look that only comes from cancer...
Being 49 is interesting, caught deep in the transition that gets to watch the next generation come up and make their way in the world while watching the generation that molded and shaped yours pass on the way of all man, sooner or later realizing that one day, you too may be the topic of someone's musings in a blog, remembered only in a trinket on a shelf.
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