Author: toddrivetti

My wife works for a tech company that sells to the Federal government. Her company is part of a larger holding company that includes many different entities engaged in a wide range of activities. As part of keeping costs down, the parent company requires all parts of the company to review safety procedures and promote safety messages for their employees. Her stories about these meeting and messages reminded me of the many weekly safety meetings that I attended during my summer construction jobs in between my college years.

These meetings were very different than the ones she attends. We would have them weekly. Approximately 150 men would press together around the superintendent of the construction site as he reviewed different things that he observed over the past week that he had determined needed to change. These were usually raucous affairs with lots of coarse humor flowing below the surface of the superintendent’s pronouncements. I was the only college guy employed by any of the subcontractors that summer. And with that status came a large amount lot of teasing…some of it not very well intended.

About half-way through the summer, I noticed that I would invariably be the subject of the weekly meeting in one way or another. Part of that had to do with the fact that I was always in a hurry and made mistakes. But others had to do with the fact that I took chances too. In the meetings the superintendent highlighted my habit of not wearing my hard-hat (at times I would kick the thing down the pathway on my way to the place where I was working). He identified my not wearing gloves while reaching into the poured concrete to retrieve fallen tools, pouring diesel fuel into the water-tank of a roller, and being pretty loose with how I used a jack-hammer among other things. At each meeting the other guys in the group would laugh and in a sing-song way would say in unison – “fuckin college kid…”

Bottom line though…if I hadn’t accomplished far more than anyone else each work day…they would have gotten rid of me in half a heart-beat. Playing fast and loose with the rules only works if you’re extremely productive.

The other day while on my way home from looking at a property I was interested in purchasing I stopped at a road-side produce stand that has pies for sale. I bought a sour-cherry pie. It turned out to be one of the best pies I’ve eaten in a long time. The crust was almost perfect and the mix of sour cherries and sugar in the center seemed to explode in the back of your mouth during each bite.

It reminded me of when I was a boy and we picked cherries near Lake Erie each summer and brought them home to freeze in order to make pies through the remainder of the year. This endeavor was an all-hands-on-deck exercise for our family. My grandmother, mother, brothers and sisters, and any cousins visiting my grandmother were enlisted in the process of picking, cleaning, and pitting the cherries in preparation for bagging and freezing. We usually picked enough for about 150 pies.

I enjoyed the picking part. But the pitting was awful! And I was always relegated to the pitting table. We’d get home by late-afternoon after having picked from early morning until mid-afternoon, and immediately start the process of extracting the pits from each of the cherries. This was a tedious chore that no-one liked. On top of that – I was terrible at pitting. Only my father was worse…both of us were “all thumbs.”

During one session, when I was about 12, I couldn’t handle it any more…I started to take the pits and gently toss them over at my brother Troy. He had very bushy hair that provided an excellent landing spot for the pits to nestle into. After a few pits had found their perfect resting place he began to loudly complain. My mother shot me a piercing look while firmly telling me that if I continued sending pits into my brother’s hair I would spend the rest of the evening in my room.

It took me little to no time to take advantage of this pronouncement. I immediately launched another pit into my brother’s hair. My mother exploded and sent me to my room. With a huge smile I quickly left the kitchen. In no time at all my mother burst into my room with what seemed like fire coming out of her eyes. I can’t remember her words…they seemed to run together in a stream of intensity. Bottom-line, I was grounded for the next two weeks. No going to the school to work out and wrestle. No playing basketball. No baseball. No swimming. Just working in the garden and doing other chores around our home.

In the end – those two weeks were still worth getting out of pitting cherries…

A few weeks ago I got word that a friend and mentor had died. His death drew my attention to the many ways that he affected my life. Of the many things that left an impression upon me, I think one of the most important was observing the joy that flowed out of him from a place of abundant generosity. After watching him closely during my first few years out of college, I came to believe that generosity is not something that you can learn in the abstract. You can only get a feel for it from observing it up close…over time. George allowed me and my wife to get close enough to observe him and his wife Marilyn’s life. We were able to see the many ways that they shared both their time and possessions. Their lives stand in such stark contrast to the way many in the DC area live – most of whom seem to have a patronage perspective on generosity.

A few days ago I was viewing a video highlighting some of the many changes to the physical plant of my college alma mater. It’s really amazing to see all that has changed since I attended the school – many congratulations to those who have done a wonderful job with this expansion. And yet…I must say….as I looked at the video, I couldn’t help but think about the loss of some of the beautiful open space surrounding the lake. That lake and the quiet field on the back side of it helped to form in me a deep awareness of the mysteries of God.

During my freshman year, I lived on the second floor of a dilapidated dorm in the center of campus that would be renovated and converted into an admin building the next year. Many nights during the winter and spring terms I quietly left the dorm around mid-night to go to the other side of the lake and stare up at the stars…often while praying. At that time, the college had a curfew requiring students to be in the dorms by midnight during the week and 1 AM on weekends. I was never one for following rules that I felt overly restrictive. And the area on the other side of the lake felt peaceful. The moonlight seemed to rest softly on the water that lapped along the edge of the embankment where I sat each night.

After several weeks of leaving the dorm nearly every night I began to assume that someone in authority had to know what I was doing. Sure enough, a few weeks into the Spring term, the dorm RA pulled me aside, looked me in the eye, and softly said – “I know you leave the building most nights after curfew…please be quiet when you do it…and don’t get caught by anyone else while you walk on campus…” I’ll always appreciate his flexibility in bending the rules to help me during a time that I really needed quiet space to think…

In the Gospel of John, chapter 13 describes the scene where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. This story stands as one of the great examples of how to love each other. It’s a short story, yet a powerful one. I think much of its power stems from the fact that it illustrates clearly and tangibly what to serve others truly looks like. As a young boy, I also benefited from a clear example of servant love. But instead of being a simple one-off story, this example was repeated each week in our home.

My father worked in masonry construction, which often meant installing concrete floors in buildings. Because he was a meticulous perfectionist, instead of only using a machine to smooth the poured concrete floors, at the end of each day he would get on his knees and hand trowel the floors one last time to insure they had a uniform look throughout. He did this each day on knees that ached from years spent in a kneeling position.

My mother also liked things to look neat and a certain way. Each week she would get on her knees and scrub the kitchen floor rather than use a mop from a standing position. She was convinced that you couldn’t clean nearly as well from a standing position. Daily sweeping or a quick mopping was okay, but a complete clean each week from the knees needed to be done.

Eventually, my dad concluded that after my mom had spent the day teaching pre-school, she shouldn’t be coming home and getting on her knees to clean the kitchen floor. So instead, after working physically harder than anyone I’ve known, one day each week he would come home and get down on his knees again to give the kitchen floor a complete scrubbing.

This past week marked my father’s 85^th birthday. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him in some way. And the memory of how he tangibly loved my mother sits at the top of those thoughts. I will be forever grateful for his example.

Recently, the writings of Brene’ Brown have been some of my favorites. I wish when I was a kid that I could have tapped into her wisdom about the “gifts of imperfection.” I always drove for perfection in areas that I thought important (though to the dismay of my parents – school work was not one of those areas…). The difficulty I still struggle with is how to move past the unhealthy drive to be perfect while continuing to push onward with healthy attempts to improve. How do you push for improvement without slipping into perfectionism? For me – one of the best ways to do this is to talk about it….something that a private person such as me finds very difficult…but absolutely critical. One of my goals in this next year is to keep the gremlins at bay (Brown’s term for the voices in our heads that tell us we’re not enough…in my case – not working hard enough…or getting enough done…). I hope to relax more, and enjoy the moments in each and every day without feeling the anxiety of not accomplishing enough. And when I do feel the gremlins creeping into my thoughts…talk about them…at least to myself…

Our kids started school this past week. It’s been nearly 25 years since my favorite teacher died suddenly, and I’ve had a flood of memories wash over my mind about her. One in particular brought a smile to my face.

There were seven of us in a small college classroom seated in a circle. Jody, our teacher, was holding court during the second day of class while she engaged her six students (4 female and 2 male). The subject was journalism, but from the beginning the topics ranged widely. Basically, everything was food for thought or a target for challenge. I don’t remember what we were discussing, but as I lost myself in the raucous conversation I referred to one of our fellow students as “she”…Then almost immediately again as “her.” Jody interrupted me…“She who?…Her has a name…Come on Todd…We’ve been here for two days now…There are only six people in this class…” She said all of it with a huge smile. But it was said firmly and loudly. Everybody was important to Jody. And she made sure that each person in the class would be treated with kindness and respect to a level that I’ve not witnessed since.

I had the privilege of taking four classes with Jody. The consistent love and care that she showed to her students was contagious. She set a tone in the classroom that helped others to flourish, and gave us the gift of her example of how to do that well. And yes…37 years later, I remember Brenda’s name …

When I was a kid, “Hot Hands” was one of my favorite games. We often played while waiting in line at the dining hall during summer camp. I attended a wonderful camp each summer that was located on an island in the middle of Lake Erie. The dining hall faced the water, and we lined up before each meal outside the beautiful stone building where we ate. We passed the time before entering by playing this game of nerves. Today, most sane adults would probably prohibit children from playing such a game. But one of the benefits of growing up in less carefully supervised times was being able to play games likely considered a bit outside of today’s proscribed lines.

The game was rather simple. The two people playing would face one another. The more unlucky of the two would start by placing his or her hands together in a praying position with finger tips facing the opponent. The other person would place both hands with palms resting against the side of their legs. The one with palms against their legs would try to either smack one side of the top of the hands of the person holding parallel praying hands, or induce that person to flinch. If the person with praying hands flinched before the person with their palms against their legs moved to try and strike the praying hands, then a penalty strike was applied. Application of a penalty strike occurred by turning the praying hands sideways and swinging downward onto the top of one of the hands – a very painful penalty indeed. On the other hand, if the person trying to deliver a strike missed, the players traded positions. This continued back and forth until someone gave in due to pain.

During one particular summer when I was twelve years old, the best “Hot Hands” player by a long shot was a girl with nerves of steel and very quick reflexes. This camp was a church related camp, and most kids came in groups from a variety of places throughout Ohio and western Pennsylvania. This girl was from a different church, and the other kids from her church seemed to accord her a certain level of respect bordering on awe. They would stand in a small circle as she did her work. Methodically and with intense focus she dispatched her opponents. Throughout the week she continued her mastery of all the boys at the camp before each meal. It was an amazing display of complete determined dominance. She could take strikes on her hands without any hesitation. And she delivered her own strikes with a ferocity that none of us could match.

Towards the end of the week she had finally moved her way through most of the other athletic, aggressive boys and had gotten to one of my friends. He had determined not to yield to the pain of her vicious strikes delivered with mechanical precision. He refused to give in as she pounded his hands. It got to the point that he could barely hold them still even though she had long ago stopped trying to get him to flinch. As his hands quivered slightly, tears started to trickle out the sides of his eyes. His hands had begun to swell a bit from receiving near constant strikes. We finally had to intervene. He was angry at us…but inside I think he was relieved. Later, in high school and college he would become a very accomplished wrestler. But I think that girl was probably one of the toughest opponents he (or any of us) ever faced.

Last month we lost three pine trees in our yard during an intense wind storm. These trees were each about 40 feet tall with rather large trunks. I’ve spent the past few weeks with my chain saw cutting the branches and hauling away the mess. I’ve finally gotten down to just the big logs from the trunks. Each of these are so large and heavy that I need to use a steel wedge to split them in order to lift them and load them into my truck. I had forgotten how much I enjoy swinging a sledge hammer – and how productive I feel smashing the head of the sledge into a target.

When I was a 95 pound 13 year old boy I spent a large amount of time doing just that with a huge pile of logs in our in our back yard. It took me nearly the entire summer to get through that pile – but the experience taught me how to keep working/pushing through. It seemed as if I would never get to the end…But I did. In the culture of physical ease that I live in now, I often struggle with how to teach my children the lessons I learned during that summer.

 

During the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college I purchased a small Honda motorcycle. Each morning I rode from my parent’s home to a construction site in Grove City, PA (about 20 miles). The trip usually took about 25 to 30 minutes. Each morning I rolled out of bed – half asleep. In 20 minutes I dressed, crammed as much food into my stomach as possible, grabbed my lunch and put in into a backpack that  I slung behind me, and strapped on my helmet. I started the bike, and off I went. Immediately, the smells of each part of the trip entered my nose. Over time I grew to recognize exactly where I was in my short journey just from the aroma hitting my nostrils. I started in a residential area that smelled of flowers and cut grass. After entering the main road, the scent changed to motor oil and exhaust. Those soon gave way to the damp fragrance of the farms that I passed, each one slightly different, and changing as the summer wore on and transitioned into autumn. The air that entered through my nose and into my lungs nudged me more awake as I rode along. By the time I pulled into the gravel parking area I was fully alert and ready to face the day. The harsh world of a construction site is no place to enter unless your wits are fully engaged. That daily motorcycle ride provided the best means of preparing for what I would face each day…