At my grandma’s funeral, years ago, the priest said something that stuck with me. And I don’t usually go for this sort of thing. But he talked about the work, the drudgery, of raising kids: bedtimes, bathtimes, breakfast and out the door to school. And again and again. And, he said, we don’t consider it heroic because it’s just expected of a parent. But it is heroic.
My dad was a hero. He worked. A lot. For us. He worked a couple decades at a job he hated. He worked through late shifts, schedule changes, transfers and as much overtime as he could gobble up.
And he always had a second job on top of that. Some of them were cool. He worked at Bellerose Lanes bowling alley. That was fun for me. I wound up joining a youth league. Still have never scored a turkey. He was also an ice cream man! That was a special thrill. However old I was – 9? 11? – to be handling the cash and handing out the treats to the customers.
And, of course, he drove for car services while there was still money in it. When Uber destroyed that business, he finally retired for good from all work.
When I say he hated his job, I mean that he hated the bosses, the bureaucracy, the reassignments and shift changes. He loved issuing tickets. Many times I’d be driving with him and he’d notice, “That’s not a legal parking spot,” clearly itching for his ticket book.