211 night in the woods - dad and the tooth about unions

Dear Readers,

I went outside and dad was standing out here. I had a chat with him.

The music of town was no longer of something suspicious going on in the air. It was a nice mellow tune like before, but it had that sentimental air, fitting for an epilogue.

I said hey to dad and asked him if there was no work today. He said he told Bob to shove it! I smiled and said really? He said no and made an ellipsis. I stopped smiling and asked him if he was ok.

He said yeah, he'd be fine. He said he wasn't gonna sugarcoat it: he hated his job. I said aw, why? He said he's mined, he's made glass, he's done a heap of other stuff... but this place... they just didn't respect you for workin'. I said they don't? and he then said a job's supposed to pay you enough to live, a job's supposed to let you provide for your family, a job's supposed to have regular hours, and a boss is supposed to respect you. Workers are supposed to be able to talk, workers are supposed to be able to have a life, workers are supposed to be able to live. He said mom always had to work but he wanted to give me and her our time, he wanted her to have hobbies, and enough time and money to do them. That's what made him happy. Now he just worked so he could keep our health insurance and hold onto the house. Or try to at least.

He's awesome :) Man... quality of life is so important...

I told him my friend Germ's dad worked for the department of transportation. He talked about dad getting a union going at Ham Panther. Dad said they fire you just for talking about it. I asked him if that was legal and he said that legal didn't always matter. I asked him if there was anything he could do and he said that they really did need a union, but it was just easier to say it than get it done. He said unions were always there in the mines and the factory, at least for a while, but here...

I said I had something for him, something I got out of the basement. He asked me how I got in the basement and I said through the door in the crawlspace. He said that was spooky. With a smile I told him what I had was... a tooth. A what? he said.

I then asked him if he knew what this tooth was. He copped that it was from the old days with that really bad boss. He said no... really? was I sure? and I said yeah. I said granddad must've had it from the old days. Dad said my name and thanked me. He said it looked bright and new, like they just pulled it out of that guy's skull yesterday. I told dad to show that to his boss and to tell him to eat S#!t.

He said Mae! and I said sorry, still smiling :)

He said he'll just keep it with him and I said sure thing. He then asked me if I would come down and picket with them if they walked out and I said I would breathe fire :) he said he loved me and I said I'd be back later :)

I then asked him what he was doing out here, by the way. He said he was getting an early start on our Longest Night lights plan. He had to dig them out of the closet and see if they still even worked. I asked him if I could help put them up and he said he'd see, as I was a small fry. I was just like, dad...

Chatting with dad again made him hum a happy dad hum :)