Tall as a Tree, Strong as an Ox, Small as an Ant, Scared as a Fox

Sometimes I hate the impression I give. Ever since my Freshman year, I have been at least six feet tall and two hundred pounds. This came in use, as I had been a kind of outlet for all of that teen angst for a lot of my classmates in the years before. But when I became too large for them to look down at, they must've found a new culprit for everything that was going wrong in their lives. It made me feel kind of bad, really, because a few people took it personally that I had involuntarily sprouted about two feet and gained about seventy five pounds. Well, I'd like to say that I gained seventy five pounds, as that would imply that I was much skinnier my first years in Junior High School, but alas, not so. I was just about two feet shorter. Yeah. Four feet tall and two hundred pounds.....not a pretty sight.


But now that I have kind of grown into some semblance of proportion with that weight, people have begun to assume that I must have some large amount of muscle mass. While my job has required that as a given, it creates the problem of how strong I am in other people's eyes.


Allow me to explain. The other day, I was in class at the good ol' BC, and a person said to me "How much can you lift." I refrained from divulging that information, and stuck with a vague, "It's been a while since I've lifted." And then the person said "You look like you can tear a tree out of the ground."


This made me think to myself "Time to start wearing long-sleeved shirts to school."


Tolkien Boy has told me many times to not be ashamed of my strength, and I appreciate that, but at the same time, I don't look that big. That's not modesty; that's fact. I have a friend who is the same height and weight as me, but he looks just like a Marvel superhero. Chiseled abs and everything. He and I used to hang together a lot, and someone once said to the two of us that if they were ever in a dangerous place, they'd want to two of us as their bodyguards. While it is my dream to be someone's bodyguard, I can't imagine how I ended up as part of that equation; especially while I was standing next to my friend. (Let us call him Dante.) Dante and I have a lot of the same ideas and dreams, and I'd say that we are the best of friends. (Disclaimer for you, Dante!)

So, I'm going to stop typing right now and go do some push-ups. Maybe that will validate me.

Standing On the Precipice

Most of my friends are college students. Everyone in my family is involved with college. My Dad's a vice president at a college. One of my brothers has his Bachelor's in English. Another has his Bachelor's of Science in Physics. The other's an engineer aspiring to become an Aerospace designer for NASA. My brother-in-law is a recruiter for a college. So it would only follow the flow of logic to its limit when the time came that I started college. And that time has come.

Yes, you read me right. Little ol' Bassercussionist will go to his first day of college tomorrow.

I won't waste anyone's time or patience with the common "I'm nervous, but I'm excited" monologues. However, I do feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff with no end. I quit my job that I've had for two years, I graduated from public school (which I've attended for thirteen years), and pretty much everyone I've known is either moving away to college out of state or going on missions. So here I stand looking at the distance below me that is filled with new school, new employment, and new people.

Well, the deepness is unforgiving, and the shelf that holds me is quickly cracking and sliding away. Instead of simply slipping hesitantly and awkwardly into the abyss, I will gather myself together and dive headfirst into it.

So here I go.

Ready or not.

Here I come.

A Day in the Life of the Ice Slinger

After a great amount of admonition, I weave my way of words once again.


I have been employed in an industry for two summers now. And, in my most humble opinion, the general population depend on this industry during the summer more than any other business. And that industry (drum roll, please) is the Ice industry. (Bah-dum ching!)


You may or may not have noticed, but people buy quite literally a ton of ice during the summer. It's almost as if they think it's hot outside or some crazy thing like that. But all I know is that it makes the average work day an interesting experience. And that makes every summer an adventure.


To give those of you "ice illiterates" an idea of what exactly an average work day is like for me, allow me to outline what basically happens each day.


The day begins when I arrive at the Ice Palace. That is the "in" term for the factory where the ice is made. I normally walk right in, sit right down, and then buy a gatorade from the vending machine. Roughly in that order. Sometimes I get a doughnut. Only sometimes though.

In order to understand what normally happens next, you have to understand the layout of the factory: Right in front is the office, through a door to the west is the loading dock where semi trucks either bring stuff in or take stuff out. Then to the south of the dock is a very large freezer door. Through said door is a gigantic industrial freezer that is mind-bogglingly cold. I think the official temperature is -20 degrees farenheit.

So that being understood, one of four things happen when I come in first thing in the morning:

1) I make my way around the back of the factory to a large machine where the ice is made to put it in bags and throw it on a conveyor belt into the freezer

2) I bundle up like an eskimo and go into the freezer to stack bags of ice that someone else is throwing through

3) I load up a truck with ice and go around town, filling up the ice merchandisers in convienience stores and other related foodstuffs providers.

4) I go into the freezer just long enough to get a doughnut and then microwave and eat it. But I only do that sometimes.

On the holiday weeks, I can go through each one of those steps up to three times a day for as much as four hours at a time. Except for the doughnut step; I only do that sometimes.

Needless to say, July 4th is my least favorite holiday of the year.

And July 24th.

And Labor Day.

And county fairs.

So there you have it. A small taste of what it's like to work at an Ice Palace. Let me conclude with a bit of advice: If you are getting gas or simply buying a corndog at your local convienience store, DO NOT park in front of the exterior ice box. While I myself am a calm, civilized sort of human, a few of my co-workers would find joy and indeed great satisfaction from parking the ice truck in a way that would prevent you from moving from that spot until we are done filling up the merchandiser. And that could take anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. Not a risk worth taking, I'd say.