I have no runts requiring my attention today. Or tomorrow. And next week only on Monday. With the likelihood of mishap, disaster, hilarity, or destruction significantly reduced by the presence of the Boss and or Beak, I might have struggled for interesting post materials. Then this morning the thought occurred to me that I have not yet recorded the lengthy and boring history of how we came to be at the place we are. If something else comes up that is post worthy, I'll post it, otherwise, the next little while will deal with how I came to be Fatdaddy ("He ate and ate and ate" says the Boss. Not exactly what I meant).
I am not sure if you will find any of this interesting, entertaining or unworthy of your time. You may get offended and if so, I apologize. As I say in church all the time, "If you are offended by something I say, I am deeply sorry. I meant to offend someone else and you just happened to catch some of the shrapnel."
I had quit school around '97, either right before or right after the Eldest was born. I didn't decide to quit; class just became less and less of a priority until I told the Boss it didn't make sense to pay tuition for classes that I wasn't attending anyway. Not my most intelligent decision ever, and that is saying something for me.
I admit now that I got lazy (Me?!! Really?!!)and since I still had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, I ignored my father, father-in-law, and pretty much everyone else I knew and quit. I was making big money stocking groceries on store shelves, man. I was cool. It was all under control.
This meant that I spent a lot of time in grocery warehouses and on forklifts. Most of them were really dangerous jobs. Not so much physically dangerous (I guess they kind of were), but dangerous in that I was afraid to leave them. Even when they sucked and I was getting hosed, I couldn't walk away because anywhere I went, I was not going to be starting over in the same salary ballpark. I knew it and they knew it.
When this understanding became mutual between us life would inevitably get worse for me, not them. I had no marketable skills and no education to speak of. What I did have was a wife and daughter who needed to be provided for. We started praying and I went to the Bishop to get a referral to LDS Employment.
Within a week, I found a job as a shipper/receiver/delivery person in a small family owned business. It was heaven. I liked the people I worked with, I was good at what I was doing and the hours and benefits were the best I'd ever had. Pay was better than what I had been getting from the grocery jerks and I got treated with respect. People were happy to teach me about the industry and I learned a lot. It was about this time that I started to see how ready and willing the Lord was to guide me into good things if I was willing to trust him.
It didn't take a genius to see that folks at that place were doing alright financially, and there was money to be made for someone with a little gumption and a foot in the door. In spite of my lack of education, I did have my foot in the door.
The Boss had been hanging around at her current employer working whatever hours she wanted to; basically for goof off money. We put a couple of bucks away for a rainy day and could pay for everything we needed and most of what we wanted. Moe joined the family, and we bought a house in June of 2002. In August we loaded the girls into a minivan and left on the vacation of a lifetime. We didn't tell them we were going to Disneyland until we drove past the front gate in Anaheim. They freaked.
Somewhere between West Jordan and Point of the Mountain, we told them that they were going to be getting a new brother or sister in April. So I guess Puzilla has been to Disneyland, but only in the most metaphorical sense. We went to Sea World and ate dinner with Shamu, got to go behind the scenes at the penguin exhibit and spent three solid days tearing through Disneyland like a hurricane. It was the one of the happiest times in my life.
Back at work, things had been moving forward and I was given a chance to work as a salesman for the repair department and had gotten a couple of very nice raises. I didn't see any reason that I wouldn't turn that good job into a great career, but it wasn't to be. Peff was born in October of 04 and shortly thereafter things started going south.
I won't detail the specifics, but over a very short period of time, my job satisfaction went downhill in a hurry and I suppose that the feeling must have been mutual. At the time I was a little bitter about it, but looking back, I know it had to be. There were reasons.
My Grandfather had been a very successful salesman in a similar industry, and I actually met many people who knew him and had done business with him. As I was named after him, I was frequently asked if I was any relation to him. I am still proud to say that I am.
I once heard Grandpa tell the story of how he came to have his own business. As I remember the story, he had spent a standout career as a salesman and manager of a good sized company. As he got a little closer to retirement, they brought in someone younger and less experienced to, in not so many words, become his boss. Adding insult to injury, they then asked him to train the man.
To quote Grandpa, "I told those fellows that I'd rather strap on a tin beak and go pick S#!@ with the chickens than do that. Then I walked out the door and started my own thing."
I know it wasn't as simple as that, but the story loses some of the humor if you know how hard he had to work and how much he put on the line and how gutsy he and grandma had to be to even try it.
And you really had to hear Grandpa tell it to get the the most out of the gallows humor. He had a real talent for taking bad turns and tough experiences and making them into something worth laughing about. He laughed at stuff that would have killed mere mortals. NOBODY tells stories like Grandpa did. I miss him.
And one day, when I had a particularly bad day at work, I found myself asking one of the shop guys to make a tin beak for me. It was time for a change.
Next up: Part 2 Jumping Off a Cliff
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