Captain Greens Summer School

It was the summer that I was 16 years old. Like most of the kids my age, I needed a part-time job to earn spending money, and keep fuel in my car. I was dating a girl some distance away at the time, and when I was able to make the trip from  Kentucky to her small town in rural western Illinois, it got in my pocket a bit. Long distance relationships, I learned, could be a bit expensive. So, I took a position at a hospital working as a groundskeeper. I learned some valuable lessons  because of that summer job; few of which were about landscaping.

My great-uncle was the Chief Electrician at this particular facility, and when I had mentioned my need for part-time work, he pulled a few strings and secured a summer of mowing, pruning and planting at the hospital. "The fellow you're gonna be working with is a little out there," he told me, "and everyday you'll see him head for the cafe a time or two. He'll come back in a happier state after each trip cross the street" he said with a wink. The cafe was famous for it's chili, and was the hospital community favorite, I would learn. It was the bar at the cafe, however, that my uncle was referring to, and my supervisors trips weren't for food always.

My supervisor, Mr. Green, was a tall skinny man with the kind of Errol Flynn pencil mustache that a lot of older fellows sported back then. He was bent slightly,  and when he walked he swung his arms out in front of him a little, as if the pendulum-like motion helped propel him forward. His  baggy pants were out of the 1950's, and cinched by a thin belt that fought to hold them to his scrawny waist. The day I showed up for work he was bending over a water hose, screwing it on to the faucet. I introduced myself and without more than a glance he grouchily said "Your uncle is a good worker...won't take long to find out if it runs in the family I reckon." And off he went, leaving me standing there. He turned around and said " Well, come on then." I followed behind him to the old brick and stone shop where I would report each day for work.

Over the next few days I was given mowing jobs, hoeing a vegetable plot for the Nuns, and pulling weeds as daily tasks. Each time I reported for work, Mr. Green would rattle off curtly what the day would include and get me the needed tools, then set me me off in the direction of my work. He was the grouchiest  man I had ever met at times, and I didn't think he liked me much. Some of the other maintenance men introduced themselves over time and would ask with a wink " How's old Green treating you? Making any trips across the street?" And with a chuckle they would be off. Mr. Green was making trips to  the cafe often; at breaks in the morning, at lunch, and in the afternoon. I had to say that his work never suffered from his trips across the street though.

Mr. Green was meticulous in his approach to landscaping. He trimmed bushes as neat as a haircut, he knew the names of every plant and flower, and how much water each piece of fauna required on hot Kentucky afternoons. I remember once that it started raining while he was watering a flower bed, and he just kept watering the whole time it rained. I was on break, and several of the hospital staff were watching out the window and trading jokes about "crazy old Green" not knowing enough to come in out of the rain. "He's drunk as usual", one person said, "he can't feel it.", and everyone laughed, including me. "But, " she added " he does keep these grounds beautiful." Most agreed.

Mr. Green would tell me how to point the mower in one direction and mow the same way every time so the pattern was just right. He insisted on attention to detail, and would let me know in no uncertain terms when he was less than pleased with my work. And he hated weeds with a passion. Once, he took me to a flower bed early one morning and told me to pull all the weeds. It hadn't had attention for a while and the task looked daunting. I took a deep breath and started to work. I pulled weeds in the sun for hours. Finally, I finished and headed for the shop for lunch. While I was eating my sandwich, old Green came in and said "You gonna finish that weeding after lunch?" I was miffed. He went on,"There are still a few left you need to get." "I've pulled at least thousand weeds from that bed," I said trying to hide the irritation in my voice. "Well, you didn't get all of  them, go back and finish after you eat." and with that he went back out the door.

At the end of the day, and after I had  removed every single thing that wasn't a flower, I was washing my hands and preparing to leave. Old man Green came in the cool dimly lit shop, sat down in his old swivel rocker by the desk and lit his ever present pipe.  He then smacked the arms of the chair lightly with his hands. "Boy, there's something you need to learn. When you pull weeds from a garden, folks passing by later won't know or talk about the hundreds of weeds you removed, they won't know how hard you worked, or how much sweat you poured in to it, the only thing they will see is what you left behind." He let that sink in then said" You have to see a thing through all the way to the end, then folks will appreciate it better...and so will you." Lesson Number One. I didn't quite get it then, and I wasn't listening as well as I should have to a skinny old drunk who watered flowers in the rain, but over the years what he said has come back to me time and again.

I wasn't enjoying my time much at my job but I had committed to the summer, so I would stick it out for my uncles sake. My uncle was a WWII veteran of Patton's Infantry, and had seen the worst of the war, including liberating concentration camps. I held him in high regard. Old Green, after all, certainly was not abusive, he was just cantankerous much of the time. I laughed about him (and complained about him) to my friends and parents often. One day we were visiting my  aunt and uncles farm and during the course of conversation my uncle said "I've heard that Green is a little hard to get along with." I nodded but didn't want to appear ungrateful for the job, so I said nothing. "He likes you though," he said. "He doesn't show it if he does," I gruffed. "Ole man Green don't show his cards to anyone, but he told me you were a good worker and a decent kid. That's a compliment from him." After a bit of silence he added "There is more to the man than you know." A few weeks later I learned what he meant.

Old man Green was not at work one day when I got there. I waited a bit, then decided to just finish mowing a plot I had begun the day before; until I saw Green and got further instruction. I looked for the keys to the shed where the fuel was stored, but didn't see them hanging in their usual place on the wall. Mr. Greens desk drawer was partially open, so I pulled it out to see if the keys might be there. What I found instead was a bottle of Vodka, and an 8 x 10 sepia photo in a slightly rusty old frame. In the photo was a  handsome young man in a WWII Army uniform sitting next to a very beautiful dark haired young woman. It was the pencil mustache that caught my eye. This couldn't be old man Green in his younger days...could it?

"That's Green you know." A voice from behind startled me. It was Greens boss, the Operations Director. "I was just looking for the fuel shed keys," I said, trying to explain myself. The Director smiled and said, "He was an Army Air Corps pilot in the war, and a damn good one too. He once circled over a plane shot down in Germany, protecting the pilot from the enemy.He stayed and fought until he was so low on fuel that, after he landed, the plane ran out of gas before he could get it taxied to the hanger. He spent enough time up there that the US was able to get to the pilot and rescue him." "Gee whiz" was all I could say.

The Director took the picture from my hands and looked at it a minute. "The woman with him was his wife. They had a son." He put the photo back in the drawer and went on, " Old Green was discharged after the war and headed home to surprise his wife. On the day he arrived,  his wife and son weren't there. Just the night before, while he was on the train home, they were both killed in a collision with a big truck. His next door neighbor had to give him the news.Green was never the same after that, and he's been living out of a bottle ever since." I looked out the door and then back to the Director, "I didn't know" I said. He sat on the corner of the desk and crossed his arms. " I know people think he's crazy, a drunk, and all that. But like you, they have know idea who he was. I put up with some things because I do know.. and because the pilot he saved from capture was my dad."
He got up after a few seconds, reached in the middle drawer, and then handed me the fuel shed keys. "Green won't be in today, he doesn't miss work often, but he has been sick lately. Just do what you normally do. He should be back tomorrow."

After the director left, I pulled the photo from the drawer again and looked once more at the movie star-handsome couple. I sighed and hung my head. I never had a clue who this man was or what he had gone through to shape him as he was. I had judged him so cruelly, and I felt ashamed. I had always looked at him as though he had been old and broken down his whole life. I had never once considered that he wasn't always old; that he had once been young and full of life, and had hopes and dreams just like I had now in my youth. Some people I realized, were  much more than their appearance. Lesson Number Two.

After that talk with the Director I held a whole different view of Mr. Green. I found myself smiling more at work,and not the least bit fazed by his sometimes gruff demeanor. I looked at his trips to the cafe bar as pain killing time. I never made fun of that again, just felt sad for him. I never mentioned the photo, but I did converse with him more.

One day he mentioned  my uncle, and I said "He was in World War Two. I have nothing but respect for war veterans, they are owed a lot.  I have kin in Vietnam right now. Someday, I think I may join the military myself."  Mr. Green didn't say anything back at that time, but he did what he didn't very often do...he took a puff from his pipe, winked at me, and grinned. He and I began to be more at ease with each other. I found myself working harder for him, and found him more friendly to me. We even shared a laugh or two before the summer was over and I had to head back to school. I looked at him differently and treated him with respect; as a result he looked at me in a kinder way too. Lesson Number Three.

On the last day I worked, he took me to the cafe across the street and bought my lunch. Before I left, he tapped his pipe into his hand, refilled it from his tobacco pouch, then said "I've enjoyed workin' with you, boy." The only real compliment he ever gave me personally.  He turned and headed back to the shop, his swinging arms helping him to push on.

I hadn't been back to school long, when one day my uncle stopped  by our house on his way home from work. He wanted to talk to me. He told me old Mr. Green was found dead at home after he didn't report to work that day. He had been laying on the couch, his pipe beside his head, and a picture of his wife and son on his stomach. "I asked him how you had worked out for him just last week when I met up with him at the cafe. Old Green said that you were a good worker, that you were smart... and that you'd make a good soldier someday."  High praise indeed, from the old man many called Crazy Old Green. He had finished another war, fought his last battle against painful heartache, and was on a train bound for home again.

Today, sometimes when a hard rain comes while I'm watering my flowers, well, I find that I just keep on watering. Hard rains usually don't last long, and much of it runs off. If the flowers need a good soaking, you just have to help Mother Nature out a bit. Might look a little crazy, but nobody knows and understands the need of the plants like the  master gardener does. Thanks, Captain Green.
Call that Lesson Number Four.