(archived from) Sept. 3 2007
by Scott Creighton
(In
order to start off a little thread about our Labor Memories, I
offer this. And we at the Zoo would like to wish everyone a
safe and memorable Labor Day) (This same website I helped start kicked me out not long after because I refused to worship at the alter of Obama)
My
first job was as a weekend dishwasher in the Burton Center at
Lynchburg College in 1980. I was 14 years old and I learned to punch
a clock early in life. We worked in a dish room around an automated
dish washing system full of steam and mostly unpleasant people. I was
one of several who weren’t college students earning their way to a
better stature in life. I was a 14 year old townie in a Private
College sea of the entitled.
JB
Allen ran the dish room. He was an interesting man. A large, local
man, probably 40 at the time with this slicked back black hair that
was always greasy, JB had a beer gut and a pick-up truck with so many
rust spots you could crawl thru some of them. He ran the dish room
like an ex-soldier would; laid back most of the time, but always no
nonsense when it came to showing up for work. He was well liked and
genuinely respected by all the workers; student and townie alike.
After my parents divorced and my father was gone,he became like a
surrogate father figure to me, over the years that I worked there,
during the summers of my high school days. And when I was accepted a
JMU, I think, in some way, he was proudest of all my true mentors.
When I
finally returned to Lynchburg, I stopped in to see old JB and we
spoke and drank for hours.
When I
came back 2 years later, I went to visit his grave site, and cried
for an hour for an old washed up redneck with a beer-gut and a piece
of shit pick-up truck.