Spring or Fall. Summer or Winter. Construction or lousy roads. Time or Money. Working on the road or Working on call. It seems like it is never possible to have the best of all worlds. I have to say, though, I’ve been very blessed for the last several months. I trust my family would agree.
In April, after returning from Kansas City for my third session of signal apprenticeship training (only one more to go), I had the opportunity to work with another crew member on a project detached from the bigger project in the Twin Cities. It meant driving 1 1/2 hours one way between home and Litchfield, and it was tiring. I was able to make the drive safely every day, though, and only had to stay in the hotel a couple of nights. The benefit for me and my family, on the other hand, was seeing each other every day, even though I was gone from 5 AM until 8 or 9 PM.
In May, I filled in for a signal maintainer working out of Willmar. Again, for various reasons, I had some really long days. I had more 12-hour work days (plus the travel back to the shop, and from there to home) than I’d care to count. And, yet, arriving home bone-weary night after night, it was still a delight to eat meals at home, take my lunches each day, and celebrate the daily events together. Even when I had to work on Saturdays, or a trouble call came on Sunday afternoon, I enjoyed the work and the ability to work near home. I confess I appreciated the first check, too.
The week following Memorial Day was also a time of contrasts. I had really wanted to attend a gathering of conservative Christians in the Twin Cities. The logistics of a large family making such a trek and figuring out how we would do chores was too much. It was that, and the reality that we had many critical-path tasks for our family. As God would have it, I had the opportunity to use some vacation so we were able to get much work done as a family. It was a very enjoyable week of tilling, planting, and fencing (think over 100 5.5-foot t-posts and close to 20 wood posts that were eight feet long and five inches across). If I had been thinking better early in the week of how the tiller should attach to the ATV, we might have accomplished more, but it was still great. It was a week of hard, physical labor contrasted with a couple of nights sitting around the fire pit as a family.
Well, after that week, I was prepared to head back to the Cities. Instead, I had the opportunity to work this week relatively near home, again. I filled in for a different signal maintainer. It’s been an intense week of work; a lot of learning and valuable experience, on the one hand, and much repetition of tasks I already know, on the other hand. Learning in two modes, one might say. I still have over an hour of drive time each way (in fact, that is why I’ll be soon heading to bed, only to rise again at 4:30 a.m.), but I have much satisfaction in sleeping in my own bed, in my own house, and near my own family. It is, and has been, worth the extra effort.
It is not that I look down upon my city friends and acquaintances, but I definitely enjoy the wide-open spaces and the big expanse of sky over the lure of the skyscrapers amid the tunnels and canyons of the metro. This is where I definitely breathe more easily.
Fare thee well, until the next post, and may God be praised.
–The Paulsonian
