Best Job

Let me tell you I have had a lot of jobs. I would say that the best job that I had was when I worked on the railway when I was eighteen.

I worked in the Dining Car deep in the kitchen, washing dishes. 'Pearl Diving' I called it. Everyone has seen a Dining Car on a train.

They sit about forty-eight people at a time. And everything those forty-eight people could consume in an hour, because that was exactly when the next sitting was scheduled, every appetizer dish, main course dish complete with side order dishes, and all forty-eight dessert dishes complete with water and beverage glasses, including their silver cutlery, was washed and dried by me.

I was located right in the middle of the kitchen, where the rubber meets the road, so as to speak. That's where the waiters gave the Chefs the dinner orders.

Sometimes it got mighty hot in there. Every hour was the same as the previous hour. Forty-eight people making up their minds what they would like to eat, and could they have their roast beef not quite pink, but not well done either. They would drive the waiters crazy sometimes.

Then the waiters would tell it to the Chef. He never liked it when something wasn't done just right and came back again. It's the second day out and you have served a hundred and ninety two people breakfast and they start filing in at 7:30 AM in the morning. Three hours later, at 10:30 we grab our breakfast and get ready for lunch which starts in one hour and thirty minutes later, and that goes on for another three hours. I was always diving for pearls.

Buried in these two foot deep sinks, I would be splashing around in a train that rocked side to side, back and forth. So I would grab my breakfast and get back in the pantry and start chipping away at a big block of ice for the water glasses to be served at the next meal.

At three o'clock in the afternoon we try to hustle out the stragglers and sit down for our lunch. In two hours supper starts and there still was a lot of preparation to be done. Sometimes supper went till ten in the evening. Then we had our supper and got ready for bed. To sleep we had to take down the tables, haul out the cots, hang the curtains and go to sleep because it all started again in six hours. So in the second day out, nerves are a little frayed and the waiters and the Chefs would be tearing at each other's throats.

We would arrive in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver the following day.

That was when the 'neat' part actually started. When we got to Vancouver in the morning, we were given a hotel room for the night and we would leave for the return trip the following afternoon. I just Loved to wander the streets of Vancouver. I had to go through Chinatown to get to the Metropol where we stayed. Vancouver's China town is the biggest Chinatown in North America. Bigger than the one in New York, and bigger than the one in SanFrancisco. It was so fascinating to walk through all the shops with their market wares set up on stands opening right onto the sidewalk.

They all looked different and spoke that strange language, and they ate some very strange sea creatures. I would walk into the stores just to see what they had in there. I get squeamish when the item I am eating is holding on to the plate. Like octopus. They gobble those legs of suction cups with tasteful delight.

And there was always things that I didn't even know whether it lived on land, in the sea, or flew through the air. But its carcass was hanging there, ready for someone's dinner plate.

I would go down to the Ocean docks where these huge ocean freighters were loading or unloading.

I was just a teen kid by himself asking if I could see the ship, and someone always saw to it that I got to see the engines and the bridge. I never got tired of doing that, and one day I knew I was going to stow away on one and find myself somewhere in the Orient or wherever.

Sometimes I would meet the Captain and chat with him at his desk. It was always a trip and a half.

The Vancouver Zoo never ceased to amaze me. I could rent a small motorcycle and zing around everywhere. The Zoo is in Stanley Park, and the park is about twenty five square miles.

At night there were so many clubs to go to. My favorite was a bottle club where they had a floor show entertainment and you bring your own liquor. Some of the Worlds best entertainers performed there. You had to keep the bottle off the table, and they just served the mix. It was located on the second floor and the Cashier on the main floor would announce softly 'page two' as you walked up the stairs. They had a different code for the Police, but in all the time I was there, no Police ever arrived. I would drink my bottle, talk to some pretty girls and watch the show.

I would wander through the late night restaurants and be back in my room around four or five in the morning.

Breakfast was back at the station, and so was lunch. So I had to walk through Chinatown a couple more times. It was a great experience.

Then at three in the following afternoon we all reported back at the train and got ready to feed the whole train back to Winnipeg.

once the crew pulled a trick on me when I had first just started. They said I had to take a plate of sandwiches up to the engineer. So at the next stop they made me get off the train and walk up to the front of the train with this plate of sandwiches.

Well the engineer decided to play a trick on the dining crew and so he kept me up there until we are ready to leave. Then he tells me I don't have time to run back and I would have to stay up in the engine until we made the next stop.

It was exciting. The big twin diesels roaring down the tracks with hundreds of tons of steel on wheels going as fast as the tracks would allow. On the Prairies we could hit ninety miles an hour. The waiters had a hard time when the engineer was late, or if the engineer just wanted to hustle the train a bit. In the mountains the train went a lot slower. It still rocked a lot in the mountains. It is hard to build a smooth set of tracks on the side of a mountain.

Anyway the engineer kept me up front right through the first sitting, and the waiters had to wash the dishes themselves. At the next stop I went back to the Dining Car. The waiters had stopped laughing long before I had a chance to return. It made me smile a bit though. I had a chance to run the train. Not that there is a lot to do. It steers itself and just rolls along.

I just did this job during the Seasonal busy periods, which coincided with my school holidays. When I turned twenty one I became a waiter.

That was the best. I could carry seven main courses complete with side order dishes and not spill a drop. It is quite easy to carry a big tray full of food on a rocking train because you are always holding it against a moving force. I would have a harder time trying to balance the tray on solid ground. Because once it starts to tilt, the whole tray is gone.

On a rocking rolling train you can sort of just swing it along. Sometimes I would make it look like I wasn't going to quite make it. But I had it under impeccable control. Never did I ever drop a tray. Except once when the train lurched and the guy in the aisle seat got a lap full of vegetables.

But other than that, never dropped a tray.

Later the Railway gave me a better job. I had to go and see every single passenger and set them in a meal setting at a determined sitting.

At night I called out a Bingo game during a complimentary entertainment thing for the passengers.

My favorite number was "Under the O, that game we all like to play, number sixty-nine"

I noted whose eyebrows went up and the expression of their face.

Once you leave your city when you are on a train, you can be anyone you want to be and absolutely no one would know the difference.

Many a time I would engage in 'inappropriate behavior', and I am sure I could sometimes tell when my seductress was really some shy Lady engaging in a fantasy.

I suppose my most memorable meeting was with a girl named Christine Shellard. She was an angelic redhead who was sweet as honey and we never so much as touched each other. I could feel the power this sweet Lady had over me. But you know, when you want to be a nice guy, nothing happens.

I said " Good Bye Christine." as the train slowly pulled away from the station in the Rocky Mountains. It was super foggy and she just disappeared in a second, but in that second there was an Eternity, because that second still lives in my mind today. In that second our souls connected, and then we were wrenched apart.

Never heard or saw her again.

All the 'other' Ladies, on the other hand, were the touching kind. I just Loved my job.

I said it was the best job, and, in a way which I am sure you understand, it was, but there was one other job.

I was a flower in the arid desert, and I bloomed.

In a World of steel and concrete, I would find a job that I must say, meant the most to me.

I was always on call at the Railway, and they really only needed me in the Summer and Christmas and Easter holidays so I had other jobs at the same time.

After that little problem at the airport with my brother Richard, I found myself in a Maximum Security Prison where the job options were slim at best. My first job was in the tailor shop, and I was making pajamas on a sewing machine. The place was as gay as a tree full of chickadees. It really wasn't my kind of space. I got into every program which would take me out of that tailor shop for the afternoon or whenever.

My first great break was when I was transferred to Minimum Security, which was like a barracks just outside of those forty foot walls. First I was on the Garden Gang with this nutty guard named Clavelle. He kinda looked like and acted like a serious Yogi Bear. Less than a month later I was on the Ornamental Gang. We planted flowers and cut grass.

About a month later I move to the best job in the joint. I was the Warden's Groundskeeper. No guards at all. I just look after the grounds and make sure the flowers are watered. The Warden's house is situated right on the far corner of this elevated part they call Stony Mountain. Actually, that is why they built the prison right there. Because it is up on this raised land, and nothing but flat fields of grain or hay all around. The guards in the towers could see anyone coming or going for miles around. Except for one spot, right at the Wardens house. That spot was blocked by the great stone mansion and very high trees.

So immediately I started a little plan. First I climbed those huge trees and cut down the dead branches. I carried the branches over to the side of the road and threw them over the edge down a slope twelve feet down. Actually I didn't throw them over the edge, I went down and carefully placed each branch so that they made a little hut. Then I mowed the lawn which was huge, and threw the grass clippings on top of the branches.

Very soon, the grass matted on top of the branches, in the branches, and made a soft bed in the inside space. My little hut was covered and interlaced with fresh mown grass.

I made arrangements with my Grandmother to have her bring Sharon, my Wife, out to that very spot, and drop her off at ten AM Sunday morning. First, she came by at four PM on Friday afternoon and as she drove by the 'blind' spot' where I was standing, and handed me a pair of walkie talkies, and drove on.

They parked the car in the visitors parking lot and went in to register with the guards so they could visit me.

I would be called to the visiting room where we hatched the follow through. For the next two days, I cut lilac flowers from the trees and lined the inside of my secret hut with the blossoms.

It was as pretty as a fairy tale when my Grandmother dropped Sharon off at ten AM, Sunday morning. With two fingers I signaled my Grandmother to return at eleven o'clock. She thought I said, in two hours. But I didn't know that at the time. Sharon was in the pup-tent sized flowery hut with me right behind her.

Her smooth soft white skin is the sweetest memory I have today. At the time, everything was concrete and steel. Then it all changed as I hungrily filled my mouth with her breasts and she guided me into her. We made Love twice and the hour was up before I knew it.

Quickly I scampered back up on to the road to await the arrival of my Grandmother. Forty-five minutes later, I had to return to my bed side where the guards would count us all. I told Sharon to stay in the hut and I would be back in one hour. Although I was terribly worried, I couldn't take the smile from my face.

I was going to just lay on the bed and wait for the hour to pass. My partner Kenny insisted that I should come down for Lunch or the guards would get suspicious. " And wipe that smile off your face." he added. " They will know something is up for sure."

So I stopped smiling long enough for the guard to pass, and then I went down for lunch. As I sat at my table, I was facing the window when my Grandmother's car came around the bend. Sharon was in the front seat beside her.

We never did that again. It was the most magical time of my Life. That's why that job was the best, and meant the most to me. Never was I so much in Love with my Wife.

A few months later, they called me in to tell me I had gotten a parole, and I would be released after being there a total of ten months. Which was one third of my thirty month sentence. I had made the maximum parole, and I was going to be with Sharon full time.

Sharon today is happily married to a nice French guy, and lives just outside Montreal. I am truly overjoyed to know in my heart, that she is happy with her Life.

She was fiercely loyal to me. Our time together was always exciting.

Sharon is next......