Lunch Is Over

Who Made Me — No. 5

Campaign Briefing: An Afternoon Post

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

I drove an old Chevrolet pickup truck in those days. Cassette player on the dash, classical music most of the time. I was a carpenter working construction sites in South Florida, and for a stretch of that time I had a laborer named Eddie who didn't have a ride to some of the more distant jobs — out in Palm Beach County, when we both lived in Dade. So I'd pick him up in the morning or drive him home at the end of the day. Eddie was a big man. A head taller than me, at least. He had played tight end for a southwestern university for a couple of years before life took him in a different direction. And there we would be, two grungy men at the end of a long day, conducting along to whatever was on the tape, Eddie's close-cropped hair and my long unkempt beard, heading down the road through Palm Beach County while people in the cars around us worked out what exactly they were looking at. I don't know that they ever did.

One afternoon we were building a playground for a Burger King. I was smoking more than two packs a day at the time — a fact Eddie found objectionable on my behalf, not his. I had left my cigarettes and lighter on the opposite corner of the site. Eddie was standing near that corner. I asked him to toss them over.

He said no.

Not unkindly. Not with a speech. Just: no. I'm not going to help you kill yourself.

I was technically above a laborer in the hierarchy of a construction site. I want to be clear that this did not enter into my thinking for even a moment. Because he was right, and I knew he was right, and there was not one thing I could say in response that would have made any sense. So I walked across the site and got my own cigarettes. And I thought about what he said for a long time afterward. I am still thinking about it.

Some time later I was working as a field foreman on a larger job. I walked up to my boss — the assistant superintendent — and told him I had a laborer I wanted to bring on. That he was good at what he did and I thought he should be the labor foreman.

My boss said bring him by, I'll talk to him.

I said: that's fine, but I'll tell you now — you don't hire him, I'm leaving.

My boss was a little stunned. Then he met Eddie, and he understood.

Eddie became the labor foreman. He was exactly as good at the job as I knew he would be. He ran his crew the way he ran himself — straight, steady, no drama, no politics. Just: here is the work, here is the standard, let's get it done.

One afternoon my boss and I were sitting outside the site trailer after lunch, still talking through the schedule. We were still sitting there at 12:30. The crew was in full view of us, and we were in full view of the crew. Eddie stood up. He told the carpenters and the laborers alike that lunch was over and it was time to get back to work. He said it to the crew. He said it in our presence, without excusing us or declining to include us in the general observation that the workday had resumed. He was not making a point. He was not positioning himself. He did not want to be in charge of anything. He just knew that lunch was over and the job needed doing, and he was the one who stood up and said so.

My boss and I looked at each other. We got up and went back to work. Because Eddie was right. Because the principle we both believed in — you don't ask the crew to do something you're not prepared to do yourself — was the same principle he was holding us to. He wasn't challenging the hierarchy. He was holding everyone to the standard the hierarchy was supposed to represent. Including us. Especially us.

I have known a great many people in my life. I count among the best of them a man who refused to hand me my cigarettes, who showed up for work every day like the job was a promise he had made, and who stood up at 12:30 on an ordinary afternoon because it was 12:30 and that was when you stood up.

I have not been in touch with Eddie in many years. I hope he and his daughter are doing extraordinarily well. I hope the hard times that found both of us in the years since are well behind him. The man I knew came through his with the same steadiness he brought to everything else — teaching me more, in the process, than he probably knew he was teaching.

If he ever reads this, he will know it is about him. And he will know where to find me.

Eddie, I owe you a hug, and a lot more than that. Whenever you're ready. I'd like you to meet my daughter - and son, too.

Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN