A Time to Mourn

I got the call yesterday morning about 9:30. It was Heidi, who used to be my manager before she transferred out to another department. Heidi rightly has a reputation as a tough customer who took no guff from anybody. I have seen her angry, and I've seen her upset, and once I saw her cry. But I had never before heard her voice shake.

"I didn't want to disturb you," she said, "but I thought you'd better hear this from one of us. Karla was killed in a motorcycle accident last night in Greenville...."

I worked with Karla for five years before she got out of the IS department for a lower-stress position. She was quiet and reserved, but she had a way of getting under my skin. I often thought she had an attitude problem. Sometimes I thought she was basically unhappy. She was without doubt intelligent: she had devised several processes we still use today. But she had trouble communicating with her co-workers, and even when she talked her voice was quiet, almost unintelligible if there was any extraneous noise at all.

We butted heads often and got on each other's nerves. And I was really ticked towards the end of her IS days, because she had retreated into herself to the point where she might as well not have been there, and it was a relief to the whole department when she jumped ship. The last time I saw her she was relaxed and happy. I knew this because she was taunting us with the fact that when she didn't have to fix computers anymore.

But on Saturday afternoon she was at a toys for Tots biker rally. It was her favorite charity. On her way home from the rally an SUV pulled out in front of her.

Last month she led a team in the local Race for the Cure. Every week she was at the Toastmasters. Weekends she biked around the Upstate.

Last night they finally found her family (a father and brother) in Tennessee, because she had her work ID on her at the time of the accident, and our HR folks had the information on file. As of quitting time today no word was available on arrangements.

Karla Hensley was 44. She wasn't married, and left no children....

Reading by Moonlight

I started a new moonlighting gig tonight. After my regular day drudgery dealing with computer issues, I raced back down the state highway I use to avoid the interstate, honking my horn as I passed the house, and pulled into the parking lot of a major national bookseller to begin my orientation.

Yes. A bookseller.

A couple years ago I worked as a cart-pusher for a major nation department store. It was grueling, nasty work, and I hated it. But they were willing to work me thirty hours a week, and I lasted at that job four months before my wife convinced me that it wasn't worth our marriage to pick up a few extra bucks.

This is different. This is books. The fact that it's inside work, and I'm only taking twenty hours a week, and it's only for the holidays, is beside the point. It's books. This is the kind of job I should have had when I was twenty-five. Sure, there's heavy lifting, and I'll be on my feet for eight hours, but I'll be lifting books. And the customers I'll be dealing with are readers, not those yahoos who want me to stuff their new 42" TV in the back seat of an '82 Honda. With two carseats. So they can take their new toy back to the trailer park.

No, these customers are looking for things to read, and someday they may reading something with my name on it. Which could, of course, be considered cool in some circles.

So how does the wife feel about this job?

All I had to do was bring up the thirty percent discount on books. And fifty percent in the internationally-recognized brandname coffee shop. Where they have desserts and frothy pink drinks.

I think we'll be OK....

The Truth

When I was very young, a lady who lived on our street was walking my grandmother and me home after an evening at their big old house. I believe her name was Harrelson, though I wouldn't swear to it. It was a clear winter night, and a small town, so the stars were bright and sharp.

Miss Harrelson asked me if I knew any constellations, and I said I didn't, so we stopped in the middle of Cooper Street and she pointed upwards. "That's the Big Dipper. You can see the cup and the handle." And I could see it.

She showed me the Little Dipper, too, and Cassiopeia, and explained that they were in the sky all year round. Then she pointed out three big stars lower in the sky, and the two at right angles to them.

"That's Orion the Hunter. He only comes out in the Winter. He's always chasing the Bull (see the stars in a V right there?), and he's got a sword in one hand and a shield in the other."

I didn't understand a lot of what she said, but I always noticed Orion in the Winter, and eventually I started looking for him in the Fall, and mourning when I lost him in the Spring. I reckoned he had other places to visit. It was like seasons. When Winter left it went south to make room for Summer....

I figured out the truth in my thirties. (It took me that long to actually think about it.) The truth is that Orion is in the sky all year long; but for half the year he's out in the daytime, when I can't see him. He has no other places to visit, no other people see. He's overhead at some point in every twenty four hours.

That's an important truth. Just because you can't see a thing (or a person), doesn't mean it's not there.

Autumnal Rhapsody

We're in deepest Autumn here
In the Northern Hemisphere
The lawns are brown, the maples red
A brand-new quilt is on the bed

There's a chill upon the air
I begin to miss my hair
At least I have a nice warm hat
Though I've forgotten where it's at

I hear that things are warm and green
That right now Springtime reigns supreme
Or sooner will or maybe later
Somewhere south of the Equator.