Cold Rain.

While driving my kids to school this morning, we went past a construction site. As I witnessed the fellas putting on their raingear and tool belts, I was reminded of my own days working in the November rain. I chronicled one of these days many years ago. There are many experiences in my life that I would like to do again. This is not one of them. I do feel, though, that it illustrates how ALL of our experiences combine to give life its color and shape. And that beauty, nearly always, exists in ugly. Here it is:

“Damn it!!” Sonny yelped for the third time in an hour. I turned my head from him and silently smiled to myself. I smiled because I knew why Sonny was screaming. He had picked up the roto-hammer and got shocked again. I understood his emotion because I had similarly been shocked several times myself, cursing and probably forcing Sonny to turn his head and laugh silently to himself as well.
It was one of those days in Seattle, one of those days that everyone thinks is common, but is actually pretty rare, a truly miserable day: temperature about 38 degrees, wind blowing and raining…hard.
Sonny and I were setting up footing forms for concrete foundation walls. Everything was wet and cold: wood, hammer, nails. Our chalk-lines were blue paste and the roto-hammer cord was soaking in the puddles/ponds, thereby making for the unpleasant surprises that Sonny and I kept experiencing. It’s strange how quickly one can forget about something like a roto-hammer that shocks you every time you touch it. I guess the other miseries took over for a while. Our fingers were half-frozen from grabbing the cold form wood and icy 16 penny duplex nails. Wet hammer grip slips caused the occasional finger smash. The tenor and volume of a scream could foretell the incident. The highest and loudest yell definitely resulted from a finger smash. The roto-hammer shock was a short, intense, fairly deep-throated curse, more surprise than genuine pain. Our raingear was soaked through; Shoulders first, then thighs, then backs and finally whole body. The chill went to the deepest part of the bones.
But this day, like all days, moved on. It was not quick enough, but eventually it was time to go home. As the sky began to darken, for the first time that day we were happy. The dark sky meant late afternoon, quitting time, not another down pour this time. We picked up our dripping tools and set the job site in order. We had made it. We peeled our futile raingear and climbed, muddy, into the cab of Sonny’s Ford. He immediately fired up the defroster, full blast. A block from the jobsite was a bakery.
While I sat in the warming truck, Sonny parked and went inside bakery. After five minutes or so, Sonny returned. As my fingers were tingling from their slow thawing next to the heater vent, Sonny opened a bag and offered me some bread. He had purchased a warm, fresh loaf. It was French bread. It was not a fancy, seasoned, fruit-laden custom loaf, just a plain loaf of French bread. After handing me the bread, Sonny’s eyes went wide as he gleamed and stepped out of the truck briefly. He returned with two tepid Rainier beers. They had been riding in the back of his truck it seems for some time. The cans were dented and paint was worn. We cracked our beers and began to laugh. We laughed as champions. We had survived our miserable day and were made whole again by a warm loaf of bread and two warm beers. We chewed bread and sipped beer. Occasionally on the ride home we would smile and nod to each other as brothers united by wind and rain and bread and beer, and we were kings.