It was nearly 7 am in Savannah, Georgia, still dark enough for headlights. I was fourth in line at the drive-through at the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Shop on Abercrombie Drive. The flashing “HOT” sign lured me into its greedy web.

“I’ll only get three,” I told myself. “Three hot glazed,” Mmmmmm. I could taste them, already. “The last time I had some was the last time I was here, some four months ago,” I rationalized.

Waiting, I rested my arm on the stomach I had grown. My own personal armrest reminded me of the continual promise I kept making to myself. I would lose weight by getting back to eating to live rather than living to eat.

The nagging started.“This Monday will be the start,” I once again promised myself, “I’ll do it this time.”

The drive-through curved to the left and led to the pick-up window on the other side of the building. An adjacent road to the right, led back out into the street and in the direction of my hotel. I was literally at the fork in the road, or at least the fork in the drive-through.

I debated myself. “I could continue on the path I am on,” I thought. “Get my three Krispy Kremes.” I could still taste them!

“Or I can just win this moment,” I thought.

“Maybe this moment won’t be life changing but… if I win this moment…!”

I tried to turn away from the Krispy Kremes but I couldn’t. “Glazed,” was winning the moment, “Mmmmm!”

The debate continued. Could this moment be the start to the rest of my life? Would I let it slip away? I have a photo someone sent, of me in my football uniform in 1976. I am an athlete in top condition. I can be again I tell myself. No, not an athlete in top condition, but be conditioned through exercise and putting the right foods into my body.

Can I do it?

I won that small battle with the drive-through. At 7:05, I turned away from my three Krispy Kremes.

Is it a life changing moment? We’ll see. 

“Nine o’clock the next day and I’m ready to go. I’ve got 600 miles to ride to do one more show.”

Those lyrics from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s What’s Your Name paint a picture of a raucous band going from city to city performing by night and traveling by day, sometimes on 600-mile journeys to the next evening’s show.

Such has been my adult business life. No, not the raucous, band playing part; but since 1979, starting as a management recruiter for South Central Bell/AT&T/ Bellsouth, I’ve been on the road from one gig to another, making my living as an actor, consultant, writer, or speaker, and then moving on to the next episode.

It started with recruiting new management hires for South Central Bell. It was technically a 9 to 5, however some weeks I left home on Monday and returned on Friday after visiting at least three college campuses. I could offer jobs to deserving young people and that was satisfying.

Later, I added acting in film and television to the consulting work I did in my firm after leaving BellSouth. For six years it was back and forth from my hometown of Birmingham to Conyers, Georgia to work on the television show In the Heat Of The Night. What started as community theatre and consultation has become a 30-year career in film and television and consultation. In the Southeast, I’ve traveled highways between Birmingham, Northwest Florida, Atlanta, Nashville, Jackson, Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, for gigs on movies, speeches and corporate communications.

I’ve flown into airports in most major cities. I flew into Memphis from Los Angeles to catch a connecting flight home only to turn around and get back on the plane to LA, because duty called.

The longest commute began in 1997, Birmingham to Los Angeles working as an actor out of the Los Angeles market. Then came Florida to LA, back and forth and back and forth until we got a place in Santa Monica and used it as our work home. I still enjoy spending time in Santa Monica with friends, Irish Joe, Michael O, and Sterfon.

Into this second decade of the 21^st century it’s been, Charleston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Auburn, Birmingham, Nashville, Washington DC, Dallas, New York. I identify cities by the gig I worked there, Atlanta: Containment, Nashville: Sing Me the Blues Lena, Wilmington: Miracle In The Woods, Jackson: The Chamber, Los Angeles: Fight Club, NYPD Blue, etc etc.

The latest gig was in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve worked Charleston now a half dozen times. I could know more about it. I could have seen more, even visited the few people I know who live there, but that’s the road life. Go in do your gig, enjoy the crew and fellow cast members, another temporary family, and head for home awaiting the next episode of life to call. Home for me is the cherry on top of my life’s bowl of ice cream. Home is where I live my life.

How many final checks have I done? You know where you walk through the room and make sure you haven’t left anything, only in the back of your mind you feel you’re leaving something. It’s a road ritual; like zipping up the final item in your suitcase only to then remember something you specifically and meticulously planned not to forget only to have to unzip, reposition and remember what you promised to remember to pack, in the first place.

Leaving Charleston, I fired up some Allman Brothers and headed to Savannah. In Savannah, I stayed in a hotel I’d stayed in before. For every night I have paid for a hotel room, I could own an entire hotel by now. Sometimes I get to mix business and pleasure. In Savannah, I got to visit with Dixson (our son) and his family.

I am working out of Atlanta again. Looking back there is a sense of pride in having made it work. In having honored my commitments, both business and personal.

When will I stop? I don’t know. What I’ve done for money over the years, I’ve also done for free. It’s what I enjoy. I love the actual performing, consulting, and writing.

There is little more satisfying to me than siting in my office in the early hours of morning writing a piece and watching the sun come up over the Bay.

Then the phone rings, an e-mail hits, a text gets my attention.

“Nine O’clock, the next day and I’m ready to go!”

I’ve learned that:
Mornings are beautiful! 
Life is good. 
The Future is now.

I’ve learned that:
Life is complicated! 
Ignorance is not bliss. 
Change is messy but necessary.

I’ve learned that:
The grass is green right where it is. 
Love feels best when you give it to someone. 
It’s great to live life as a free agent. 
The back roads of life are as exciting as its superhighways.

I’ve learned that:
Anger doesn’t help a whole lot. 
The fruit you reach for is better than that which falls at your feet. 
I’m just passing through.

Rolling into Atlanta up I-85 north, I approached the interchange outside of downtown that offers the possibilities of north, south, east or west depending on your destination. I chose I-20 west and the flood of memories began.

I spent nearly six years driving this portion of the interstate while working on a television show that lives on in memory, reruns and in many, many hearts. In the Heat Of The Night was my first recurring television experience. Carroll O’Connor hired me as his city councilman, Ted Marcus, on the show.

I rode into downtown Covington, Georgia that had doubled as Sparta, Mississippi on the show and could not stop grinning. I passed the library, which, with signage and several police cars parked out front, doubled as the exterior of the police headquarters. There was the department store that I remembered standing in front of with Howard Rollins as we waited for the director to shout “action,” before walking up the sidewalk and me, (Ted) trying to convince him to run for police chief. It would be my first scene ever on the show and one of the first I’d ever shot. I was a little nervous. I must have passed the test because the producers continued to hire me for the next five years. I passed the park where Carroll, Denise Nicholas and I shot a scene from the episode of “First Girl.” The memories were now a flood.

I had not been back this way since the mid nineties when the show wrapped for good, after 8 years on the air. A reunion of In the Neat of The Night fans and fellow cast mates brought me back to my beginnings.

I parked and walked toward the restaurant where we were all meeting. There were people standing outside. “Ted Marcus is here, ” someone announced as I was walking up the street. Ted was alive once again. It felt good to be Ted again.

Most of the fans had come from several states away. They are all dedicated to the show, know most of the episodes and could quote me Ted’s dialogue from most of the shows I worked. A few of the people gathered called me Thom but most stuck with my TV name Ted. “Ted remember in such and such an episode you said such and such to so and so?” “Ted, remember when you tried to get Virgil to take the Chief’s job?” Ted remember…”

It was like a family reunion on steroids.

I had been contacted last year to attend the first reunion, which I understand was a major affair with over 700 people in attendance and the actors signing and taking photos most of the day. Many of the actors returned for that reunion. I had not been able to attend, as I was fortunate enough to be working another show Containment, at the time. This reunion was smaller, maybe 50 participants. But it was just as special to me.

People came from Indiana, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and so on and so forth. The have a closed group Facebook page. They are a classy group. The page begins:

Welcome to In The Heat Of The Night Fan Page!

Along with this being a fun group of Heat fans to gather and share love of the show, and movie, there are common sense expectations to follow in the group including, but not limited to- NO NEGATIVE, OR BELITTLING, comments about any actors from the show. No advertising which includes for other groups/pages. (Heat related events and etc. are okay) No political talk. Respect other member’s posts and opinions in the group. Thank you!

It is a great group of people.

While in Covington they go on tours of set locations including to the owner’s houses that doubled as homes for the characters on the show. The owners allow them to tour their homes. The owner of the home where Virgil and Althea lived on the show welcomed a couple of the female fans to spend the night. This has not happened on any other show I’ve worked.

I’ve done about 75 episodes of television, a dozen movies, a couple of hundred commercials, industrials and other productions but there is something different and special about The Heat. It still airs every day sometimes twice a day. Across the country I’ve met fans that are almost religious about it. Many younger people will tell me “my Grandmother loves that show.” “My Dad watches it every day.” It touched souls. It made people happy. That is satisfying to those of us who worked it.

I always knew why it was special to me. It was one of my first. I landed a recurring role on a top ten show and got to learn from some pros. I got to befriend Carroll O’Connor, Howard Rollins and the other actors and crew. It gave me the confidence to continue going forward to what became a career.

Leaving Covington, (Sparta), that evening I knew why Heat was so special to others. Covington, (Sparta) will always be in my heart. Beyond just a television show, obviously we created memories not just for ourselves but also for fans across the country. They thanked me over and over for coming. I thanked them over and over for having me.

I met the champ, Muhammad Ali, in 1973. I met him at Auburn University. He was on campus for a lecture entitled “The Intoxications of Life.”

As a part of our Journalism class, the professor arranged for students to cover Ali’s press conference. It was being held in the same building our class was in, Haley Center. Excitedly, we packed up our belongings and headed downstairs to see the champ.

I have been a Muhammad Ali junkie since 1964, when I was twelve years old and he beat Sonny Liston in Miami. A young potential athlete, I invested my time and attention on athletes who had a social conscience, who wanted to make a difference, who had something to say and who often became controversial if they chose to speak about human rights. Ali had something to say and the boxing ring could not contain him.

He changed his name from Cassius Clay, his given name, to Muhammad Ali, which he said meant, “worthy of all praise most high.” He upset the boxing world by beating the “Big Bad Bear” Sonny Liston. He became a Muslim minister. He declared himself the greatest heavyweight champ of all time, which did not set well with the previous generation. He shook up the world with, “Just take me to jail.” As a conscientious-objector, he refused to serve in the US Army after being suspiciously reclassified 1A. He had originally been disqualified for military service. Ali said that he would not fight the Vietcong, and was stripped of his title.

Ali lectured on college campuses across America. Gave people hope that they could have better lives. He became a different symbol of courage. Eventually the US Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court decision and granted Ali his conscientious-objector status. He came back to boxing and lost for the first time to his rival Smoking Joe Frazier, (a fight I saw closed-circuit in Columbus, Georgia). He lost to Ken Norton (saw that one too), who had broken his jaw. Now, he was in Auburn, just a few feet in front of me.

I sat there with my reporter’s pad and pen. I was in heaven.

The champ spoke about the “Intoxications of Life.” Ali talked about humbling himself after his two defeats, which he attributed to his immersion into life’s intoxications; too much money, too many women, long nights, not enough training, and not enough godly living. It seemed a perfect message for those of us from the past year’s football team. We had finished the season 6-6 after two seasons of 9-2 and 10-1. Perhaps we had gotten too full of ourselves as well.

After the press conference, Ali put on a show at my expense in the lobby of the auditorium. The photo captured by university photographer Les King, hangs on a wall in our home. The champ has a playful but serious look on his face as he squares off in perfect boxing form shouting at me, “JOE FRAZIER, JOE FRAZIER.” My hands are up in a defensive pose. My fists are not balled up and I am laughing really hard. I too am wary though. He was incredible fast. I dared not make a false move. Afterward, I was interviewed and asked what it was like to square off with the champ.

Our paths would somewhat cross again 22 years later when I performed the one man play “Ali” in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. I sought out the script and director, then played the champ as a young man who would morph into the older version of himself as he was beginning to struggle with the same Parkinson’s disease that eventually KO’d him. I prepped like an athlete. I researched Parkinson’s, watched film, read magazines, hit the heavy bag, listened to tapes of his voice, studied his walk, and trained… and trained. For the run of that show, to the audience, I was Muhammad Ali.

I still have the robe. Identical to the white one he wore in the ring with his name on the back in big red letters. I still have all the research materials, including the 1971 Life Magazine issue with Ali and Joe Frazier on the cover with photos from the epic fight taken by Frank Sinatra.

In his own words, Muhammad was the greatest boxer of all time. In the play he asks, “Do you know what it’s like to be the best in the world at something? The best in the world?”

He became more than a boxer. To many he was a symbol of hope. Also, in the play he says, “I could knock on anybody’s door in the world and they would invite me in.”

“I shook up the world,” he concluded.

Yes he did.

The Big O is gone.

My friend. My teammate. The man who helped me through the biggest cultural change of my life is gone. James Curtis Owens died today, March 26, 2016. I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. But knowing and living beyond it leaves a hurt and pain deep down in my soul.

I first saw the Big O on a Friday night at John Carroll Athletic Field on Montclair Road in Birmingham, Alabama. I was a junior at John Carroll High School, playing my first full year of organized football. We were a small, rag tag, undersized bunch playing about two classifications above our ability and size level. We didn’t win very often.

The opponent was Fairfield High School. They were good. They had a starter named James Owens, who would later sign with Auburn University, becoming the first African American to integrate a major state university in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi… the Deep South. Now, he was warming up across the field from me. A running back, he was tall, lanky and wore a horse collar around his neck. He was about 6’2” and weighed close to 210 pounds. He looked dangerous. Ready to kick some you know what!

Our coach had warned us about him. He’d then gone on to tell the lie that coaches tell outmanned teams when they are about to get slaughtered by a bigger, faster, better team with bigger, faster, better players.

Referring to Owens, our coach said, “Hey! He’s no better than you. He puts his pants on one leg at a time just like you do.”

We all knew that was bullshit. Putting his pants on like we did had nothing to do with playing the way we did. This guy was All-State in football and track. He ran the 100 hundred-yard dash and threw the shot-put. He was a monster. I was glad as hell I wasn’t on defense.

It wasn’t pretty. He left carnage on the field. I don’t remember the score but it wasn’t close. After it was over, I watched him walk off the field where he had dominated us. Having integrated Fairfield High School football he was now heading off to be one of the first blacks in the Southeastern Conference.

Two years later, I would join James and Virgil Pearson, also from Fairfield, and Auburn’s first African American Athlete, Henry Harris, at Auburn University.

As a basketball player, Henry often travelled in different circles. For Virgil and me, James became our Daddy. We nicknamed him “Daddy O.” He was strong like our fathers, but gentle towards us, who had followed him. We not only respected him, everybody, on and off the field and in the athletic complex, held James in high esteem. Integration made things socially awkward but everybody respected James for his quiet, dignified courage. That respect lasted all of his life.

Our special friendship lasted from 1970 until his death. Like close friends we drifted apart throughout the seasons of our lives but we always found each other again because of the love and respect we had for our shared experience.

Henry left Auburn University after his senior basketball season. Virgil left his sophomore year, looking for a different experience. For the next two years on the varsity football team It was just James and me, as athletes of color. For the rest of his life we always relived that experience.

Between us we realized there was no one else in the world who shared that loneliness, that moment in our lives where we carried the pail of integration uphill without much assistance from those who could have helped us along. Those times were about providing for those whom would follow. We knew that. It kept us going.

James kept me grounded. He talked me down many times when, emotionally, I was way over the top. Over time, we embraced our teammates and they embraced us with that special bond that comes from the shared experiences of being teammates and winning games. During the two years when James and I were the two black pioneers on the team, we won 19 games and lost 3. We were a part of something bigger than us.

Throughout the decades that followed we talked a lot about those times. We always circled back to that experience. What had been a painful part of our lives had become, by the 21^st century, a memory of achievement, a gift that we gave to all who followed at our university, not just the black athletes. We also grew to love our teammates and they loved us back. Today we are teammates for life. It ‘s more than a slogan. We live it.

James is an Auburn University icon. He doesn’t need for me to tell everyone about his contributions. Look around the university and you will see his accomplishments in the faces of the young men on the football team, the basketball team, the track team, the baseball team and in the faces of the young women on the softball team, the basketball team and all the other sports that did not exist before integration.

He will always be remembered for what he gave to Auburn University, the state of Alabama and college football. I will always remember him as my friend.

The news of death travels at Internet speed. I found out about my friend “Wash” while trolling along on Facebook. He’d died that morning.

“Book” was the type of guy you didn’t envision dying. Not suddenly. Not of pneumonia.

There is no single descriptor for “Booker.” Just like his many different friends called him by the many variations of his name he was a character, one with deeply held convictions of righteousness and caring for those with less than.

“Try and do as much right as you can in the world,” was one of his quotes on a You Tube interview you should see. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nguzYcltZOk).

He tried. He was a child protester in the Birmingham Civil Rights movement at age 14. At 18, he did his duty in Vietnam. He was a foot soldier all of his adult life for human rights. He was a political activist and an agitator. Man, he’d agitate the heck out of you. He liked getting up under your skin.

We traveled in different circles. Me, in the upscale world of shirts and ties, “Book” in his overalls, white T-shirt and a hat sitting astride his head, grinning. Always grinning.

Our common ground was a heart for humanity, a love of poetry and drama and bicycles. Poetry and drama unites the unlikeliest of humans. Joins us through the power of words. Joins us through our mutual humanity. We shared that. Our love for humanity expressed in the words of writers, actors, poets, on stage, in church, and on the street.

Bicycles. We would ride up and down the hills near Shades Crest Road when I lived in Hoover, Al. On those rides we debated our mutual humanity and how best to serve others. We always agreed on the expected outcome. Getting there would sometimes lead us down different paths.

The last time I heard from my friend was through a mutual friend, Judge Mike Graffeo. They both live in Birmingham. I was in Los Angeles. It was a call I couldn’t answer for whatever reason of importance at that time. Mike left the message he was with Booker and they were giving me a call. But they would be gone in a few minutes.

On his You Tube interview, Booker leaves us all a message.

“ If you truly believe that every human being is important. …that the greatest thing on earth is another human being and that the greatest thing on earth is our collective mind.

…And if we could ever tap into that, ever just realize that the only things holding us back is us.

…If we could pursue peace like we pursue war. We would already have cured cancer and be a thousand years ahead of where we are now.

Try and do as much right and as much good as you can. Try to spread as much love and joy and peace in the world as you can.”

The words of Washington Booker III, born January 20, 1949, died January 20, 2016.

America is changing.

  
For many its exhilarating and introspective.  

Scary for others. 

America is changing!

I rolled into Birmingham Alabama, my hometown, for a couple of days of Board meetings, to hang out with some friends and to visit with my 90 year-old Dad, when, bam… a heavyweight championship fight broke out on the University Of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) campus, Don King and all.

Deontay Wilder, never heard of him? I hadn’t either. But now you know. He’s the recently crowned WBC (World Boxing Council) Heavyweight Champion and he lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That’s right Tuscaloosa! He stands 6’7” has an undefeated record of 34-0 and the man throws bombs! Whew!! I could feel the challenger’s pain from my third row seat.

Here’s some background. Deontay won the title last January at the boxing mecca of the world, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He defeated Bermane Stiverne for the WBC crown, making Wilder the first Heavyweight Champion from Alabama, since the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis.

For his first title defense, Deontay wanted to do things differently. He wanted to defend his crown in his home state of Alabama. That’s right. He turned down the MGM and Vegas for Alabama. Specifically, he wanted to fight in his hometown of Tuscaloosa and on the campus of the University Of Alabama. They said no! Who knows why?

Birmingham raised its hand and grabbed its first Heavyweight Championship fight in the City’s history. It was quite an event!

City dwellers, suburbanites, and out-of-towners, some from as far away as Russia crammed the UAB Bartow Arena. Ring card girls in skimpy, short shorts stood on high heels, sashaying back and forth ready to announce the upcoming round. The ShowTime Network was visible all over the place with its cameras telling the Birmingham story to an international audience.

In the less-than-VIP quality VIP room, recognizable names and faces, drank chatted and ate with some of the celebrities. My friend Big Charles Barkley gave me his customary “thank you” as he wooed a small group of admirers. He always gives me a thank you, telling me “You know I always say thank you to you.”

“I appreciate you Charles,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he again repeated to me. I smiled and moved on as others fell over themselves to get his autograph and a picture. Charles obliged them all.

“The Real Deal,” former heavyweight champion, Evander Holyfield strode in looking all fit and ready to kick some a__. He looked great! I kept trying to get a good look at his ear. You know the one Mike Tyson bit a plug out of in one of their Heavyweight Championship fights. I couldn’t find it. The ear looked whole to me. I wonder if someone bites a chunk out of your ear, does it grow back?

With his security guard standing nearby, “The Real Deal” conducted a thirty-minute tutorial to a small crowd on heavyweight boxing championships. Evander calmly explained how Deontay could beat that night’s opponent, and with improvement, “He could beat the Big Russian,” Wladimer Klitschko, the king of today’s heavyweights. That was saying something! But if Evander says it, hey, you have to listen. The man has a heart as big as any that ever set     foot in the ring.

The biggest celebrity of them all was Don King. That’s right, Don King! He was a gentleman, which threw many of the VIP’ers for a loop. They wanted to dislike him based on his media characterization. While trying to wolf down his food, he was constantly bombarded with autograph and photo requests. “Mr. King would you mind if I take a picture with you?” He obliged every person, gave everyone a smile and never did get to eat his food.

“Get him Deontay,” the young woman screamed in her shrill and annoying-as-hell high-pitched voice. “Get him.”

She sat right behind my friend O.T. and me. From the opening bell of a round to the closing bell of that round, she screamed in a piercing scream, “You better knock him out. Knock him out Deontay! Git him.”

While screaming she would jump, throw punches and scream some more. “That’s my brother,” she announced. “Git him, bro. Git him Deontay. You better knock him out.” O. T. caught several of her punches with his head. “Excuse me.” She screamed at O.T. when he rubbed his head. “Git him,” she continued screaming at her brother. “You better knock him out.”

“You better duck,” I told O.T.

She only caught me once, an elbow to the head. “Sit down,” I wanted to say. But I didn’t. She would not have heard me anyway. She was in a zone. “Git him. Knock him out Deontay,” she continued. I let it go.

The place got really loud! The crowd blew the roof off of the noise meter.

The ring card girls did their slow sultry walk between rounds.

Deontay finally connected on a couple of bombs in the 9^th round and the challenger, Eric Molina, who wasn’t a bad fighter, had had enough. He gave in to the pummeling he had been taking the last few rounds. Enough was enough! He went down and didn’t make it up before the count of ten. The night was over.

My friends, and I poured out of the arena with the still enthusiastic crowd. It had been a great night.

Birmingham had done itself proud. “Git him Deontay!”

Back in yesterday, which is a couple of decades beyond “back in the day,” I was a garbage man. A garbage man? Yes I was, and I’m proud of it, even thankful. Before I became an actor, business owner, corporate executive, etc, my summer jobs were always adventurous. With few business connections, I took whatever job opportunities I could find. While in high school and college, I was a bus boy, a women’s shoe salesman (that was a hoot), worked construction, worked in the Birmingham steel mills, and my favorite summer job; which I did two summers, I was an ice cream salesman, truck, cute music and all. (That one deserves it’s own story).

The garbage man job occurred the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was not able to find a summer job and a friend of mine told me about the City of Birmingham satellite lot a couple of miles from my home. He told me many of the guys who worked as garbage men were hired on a Monday, got paid on a Friday and if they were not diligent and got drunk on Friday; they might not show up for work on Monday. Thus, on Mondays there were job openings.

I needed a job! We took off walking for the lot.

Keep in mind these were the days before the municipal garbage trucks were equipped with a lifter that picked up the cans and dumped the garbage in the truck. Men working as laborers did the work, working three to a truck one perched on each end of the truck with a man in the middle. There was also a “set out man,” whose job was to walk the neighborhoods before the truck arrived and set the cans out to the curb and a “set back man” who set the cans back in the yards after they were dumped. I became “the middle man” on the truck.

Getting hired was a story in itself. When we arrived, at least 30 to 40 men, all black, were lined up in anticipation of getting hired. A lone white man was inspecting each of the Men. I was in shape for football. He felt my biceps and asked me to step in the office. My friend, bigger than me, was also selected. We filled out paperwork and we were hired. Being hired on the spot was a surprise. There was no application process, references, etc. I was told which truck on the lot to report to and my first day as a garbage man began.

I met the men on Love’s truck. Love was our driver, a nice man who shook my hand and welcomed me to the crew. I met Stumpy and Ricky the two end guys. They told me Hotshot, the set out man, was already out working ahead of the truck setting out the morning’s cans. Bear would follow along behind and set the cans back.

Stumpy and Ricky wore gloves, soft brogan shoes and worn clothes for the days work. Not knowing what I was getting into, I had on converse tennis shoes, jeans and no gloves. Stumpy and Ricky stood on their perches on each side of the truck holding onto the handrails. With no handrails in the middle of the truck, I stood over the garbage hopper on the slippery ledge of the back of the truck, the truck metal cutting into my hands.

We were off for the day.

Traveling along sometimes at 40-50 miles per hour to our neighborhood destination. It was scary hanging onto and sliding along the back of the truck.

Stumpy, a grouch and the unofficial leader of the backend of the truck gave me a worn extra pair of gloves. I thanked him.

We reached the neighborhood and the slow crawl up and down the crowded streets began. Stumpy flew from the truck, grabbed a can with one hand, spun around and slung the house’s garbage into the hopper of the truck.

I was officially a garbage man!

Love maneuvered the truck. The truck never stopped rolling. Stumpy and Ricky, like athletes ran behind the truck, dumping the days waste into the truck’s backside. I ran along between the two men until one of them called out “two,” meaning there were two cans on one of their respective sides. That was my cue. The second can was mine. I struggled. It was hard work, a grown man’s work. There was much laughter and fun at my expense, Love grinned in the side mirror.

They were men. I was a seventeen-year old boy. The laughter challenged me. I wanted to be accepted into their world.

For lunch we stopped at a service station, and the men bought sodas and pulled their homemade lunches from inside of the truck. Again not prepared, without any money, I sat alone and pretended not to be hungry. Ricky volunteered and bought me a soda. Stumpy loaned me money for a bag of chips. We all sat there like grown men, enjoying a quick lunch before finishing our day. Love, the white driver, ate with us, which was rare in those days.

By the end of the day I’d gotten the hang of it. “Two, College Boy,” Stumpy would shout. That was my cue. Stumpy had given me the name, “College Boy,” when at lunch, I had made my intentions known that I was headed to college in a year, a place neither of them had been. Stumpy and I glided to the cans in tandem, pirouetted like dancers, grabbing the cans and let the garbage fly into the truck. It was almost beautiful, poetry in motion. By now, I was smiling.

When we were done, Love pointed the truck in the direction of the city dump. Naturally, I got the job of sloshing into the muck of stinky, filthy garbage and guiding Love backward before he dumped the day’s garbage. We were done.

We headed for the lot.

Love pushed the truck along at about 50 miles an hour. It was agreed they would let me off within a half mile of my house to save me the two-mile walking distance. The time came for me to get off, but Love didn’t stop the truck. He slowed some, but we were still moving along at a pretty good clip.

“Come on College Boy, jump,” Ricky called out. It was my last challenge of the day. Would I jump from the rolling truck like they did, the pros? Love smiled in his side mirror. “Let’s go college boy,” they urged. “We want to get home.” Love slowed a little more for me. I hit the ground running, gliding into a stride like I had been a garbage man all my life.

“See you tomorrow,” I yelled as the truck roared off to the lot. “Thank you.”