Who would bring a cheesecake to a cathedral?

Who would bring a cheesecake to a cathedral?

That question kept rolling through my mind as I sat behind the man.  He was obviously a coal miner and looked like he’d just come from the mines.  He was covered in soot and smelled of coal and caves and sweaty, blue-collar work.  Beside him sat a cheesecake that looked quite scrumptious.  I’m a sucker for cheesecake.  We’d both obviously come for our moments of quiet, reflective prayer.  I felt that one of us was out of place and maybe it wasn’t him.  Maybe it was me.  I hadn’t come directly from my work.  I just stopped by on the spur of the moment.  But I was finding concentrating difficult.  I was eyeing that cheesecake.  Boy, it looked good.

About that time the wind picked up and I could hear dirt and debris being driven against the cathedral’s stained glass windows.  Suddenly this wasn’t just a place of worship.  It was shelter from Mother  Nature’s  wrath.  But the coal miner didn’t seem to notice that the weather had deteriorated outside.  He was quietly contemplating in the pew two rows ahead of me.  But through the space between the back of the pew and the seat I could see that cheesecake, and it was starting to dominate my thoughts to the exclusion of all else. 

What is it about a cheesecake that is so enticing?  Is it the creamy filling, the graham-cracker crust laden with sugar, or the cherry filling topping? Probably all three.  I wonder if this is to be his supper, or he’s taking it to his elderly mom?  I’m tempted to ask, but of course I don’t.  This is, after all, a cathedral.   And thoughts should be about more spiritual things than the destination of a tempting cheesecake.  Why can’t I concentrate on my prayers? 

Obviously this man is doing a better job at controlling his thoughts than I am.  He has barely moved a muscle since I walked in and sat down behind him 15 minutes ago.   Back then the sky was bright and clear, my intention was to slip into the cathedral and share some private spiritual thoughts with our God and creator, and then be on my way once again.  Instead, I’m obsessing about this cheesecake and wondering why I don’t have the mental discipline to control my thoughts.  Good grief! 

I’m beginning to think the dust storm is subsiding as the sound isn’t nearly as loud as it was a few minutes ago.  Who knew the wind could create such a cacophony of noise in a church?  But the devotion candles continue to flicker in the racks near the altar, and the building mysteriously creaks and moans but there is no discernible movement.  And the coal miner continues as if nothing has changed.  Boy, these pews are hard.  I shift my position to relieve the pressure on my tail bone, and it hurts.  Obviously I’ve sat too much on my duff today.  Maybe I’ll try kneeling for a while, which I should do anyway in this House of God. 

Now it’s harder to see the cheesecake.   But I know it’s still there.  The coal miner is wearing a soot-covered red, long-sleeve flannel shirt and a black vest.  I have to assume it’s black.  Either that or the soot has made it black.  Finally now I notice a small movement of his head.  This is the first sign in more than 15 minutes that he’s not really a mannequin.  He fishes a soiled, white handkerchief from his back pocket, then takes a moment to clear his nose of, what I assume to be, a day’s worth of coal dust.  After a cleansing wipe or two, he stuffs the handkerchief back into his right back pocket. 

While I’m lost in thoughts totally unrelated to why I came into the cathedral, the coal miner silently stands, picks up his cheesecake and slides from the pew.  In a moment he is gone.  The door quietly clicks behind him.  It’s time for me to get down to business and talk to God.  That’s why I came here.  Not to study humanity or exercise mental gymnastics over an eight-dollar dessert.  But I think when I’m through praying I’ll stop at the store on the way home…

A lazy, dusty day

A lazy, dusty day

It was around noon when I drove into the farm yard on another hot, humid, sultry, steamy, southern summer day.  The Ford’s AC was working valiantly to keep ahead of the heat but it was a losing battle.  The sweat was streaming down my forehead and stinging my eyes, making it hard to see through my streaked sunglasses.  Behind me was a cloud of dust hanging in the damp air, apparently satisfied just to hang there and finding it required too much effort to settle back onto the dirt road I’d just driven down.

Near the barn, seated on an old, rickety metal folding chair was a very large, grizzled old man (mechanic), overalls stained by grease – or maybe it was sweat.  Hard to tell in this confounded heat.  In his left hand was a paper plate holding the remains of a piece of pie – what kind I couldn’t be sure.  But from the crumbs on the napkin tucked under his chin and the sated look on his face, he was nearly finished enjoying his dessert.  An old, beat-up Ford pickup missing one wheel and with the hood propped up was to his left, just in front of the barn.  The Ford – like the old man – had seen better days.  My guess was he was trying to coax a few more miles out of the old gal.   Fittingly, it was grey in color.

As I turned off the car’s ignition the old man looked up from his dessert plate, apparently now noticing for the first time that a stranger had entered his yard.  He blinked, made a funny face like he was trying to dislodge the sweat without using his hand, and then reached for his cup of coffee – yes, coffee! – and took a leisurely sip before pulling a red bandana from his back pocket and wiping his forehead.

Would I be treated to some of that famous southern hospitality, or was he preparing to run me off his farm?  I was hoping for the former since I had lost my way an hour or more ago, having relied too heavily on a weathered, old, apparently-outdated map instead of one of those newfangled global positioning devices.  Instantly I had wished I’d subscribed to the navigation service on my new “smart” phone.  But “smarts” was something I was lacking at the moment, which was exactly why I was standing in this farmer’s yard about to ask directions.

He gave me a quizzical look, the kind that says “Are you lost?” without coming out and saying it.  And at that moment I got the warm feeling that at least I wasn’t going to be run off without being able to speak my piece.  That’s what I like about Southerners – slow to judge and apparently in this heat, slow to move too.  That was to my advantage.

As I took a couple tentative steps toward his chair I pulled a damp handkerchief out of my back pocket and wiped the sweat from my forehead.  My white shirt was limp and had long ago lost the crisp, starched look that it had at breakfast.  My necktie was still knotted, but that’s about all I can say for it.  It was still hanging around my neck almost like it wanted to jump off but still didn’t have the courage to abandon me.  My shiny black loafers were anything but anymore – covered in dust but that was the least of my problems. 

I lowered my gaze so as not to make eye contact.  Such a thing as eye contact with a dog can spell trouble, but here I couldn’t tell.  I didn’t see a rifle, but then what self-respecting southern gentleman leaves the house without his firearm?  The last thing I wanted to appear as was threatening. But then I remembered, I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see my eyes.  I took the sunglasses off and flashed my most disarming, sheepish grin.  At that very moment and for the first time I noticed the dog lying beside the man.  Until now the black and white dog – my guess was it was a mix with the best of farm dog qualities – had been immobile, apparently asleep beside his master, head lying on his paws.  Now he raised his head with a quick sideways tilt, sizing up this new intruder.

A lesson in humility

Some of life's lessons are painful. I had a short course in humility on Wednesday with such a job interview. What made it so painful was my realization I am not yet a world-class public affairs specialist. This was a telephonic interview for a PA position with the Department of the Navy in Pascagoula, MS. My internet search of Pascagoula showed it was featured in Ray Stevens' ditty, "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival." It's also Mississippi's largest seaport and home to SUPSHIP Gulf Coast, which stands for Supervisor of Shipbuilding (SUPSHIP), the United States Navy’s agency that administers shipbuilding and ship repair contracts with major shipbuilding contractors on the Gulf Coast. Approximately 400 military and civilian personnel work on this project in the coastal city of approximately 26,000. I had already contacted the Human Resources Department several times to inquire about their progress in filling this position. While we were sitting in the Smith Center (KS) Economic Development office on Tuesday, I got a call from the HR POC requesting my availability for an interview on Wednesday. We were prepared to start home for Tennessee when we left town, but this gave me further motivation to make our trip in one long day so I could have prep time Wednesday morning before the interview. We arrived home to Millington at 1 a.m. Wednesday and shortly after we went to bed. When I awoke early Wednesday I began to prepare for the interview. The Internet's a wonderful source of information and so I scanned articles about the US Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command (which the Gulf Coast operation is part of), Pascagoula's harbors, and the city itself. I armed myself with information about the Navy's rank structure (being an Army vet I knew little about the Navy). And, of course, I visited a few sites to gain insight into what type of questions to expect. My resume and note pad were laid out and I had done more preparation than I had for any prior job interview. I was about as ready as I could be with four hours of prep time. I was also nervous. From the start, the telephonic interview did not go well and I felt -- if it was possible -- it got worse. I had violated one rule of the telephonic interview -- using a cell phone. But since we don't have a land line I had no choice. But one of my early answers was greeted with the response that I was breaking up. So I clumsily tried backtracking over the information again. While I had expected the panel of four to ask questions, only one person asked questions and he was obviously reading from a script. After I briefly answered each question, silence filled the space until the panelists marked their summations of my answers. It was an awkward silence to say the least. No one chimed in with other observations or questions. This was like a word-for-word rehash of every question I had answered on the initial job application. There was no personality; there was no humor. It almost lacked a human element completely. Barb had told me to be sure to smile during the interview, because that emotion would be conveyed in the conversation. I didn't smile. I couldn't smile. There was nothing to smile about. Probably the worst part of a job interview is anticipating the tough questions and then backing up answers with specific examples. I was asked the tough questions. The problem was I didn't have specific examples to share because most of my job-related experiences in this field occurred at least 15 years ago. It was at this point I realized I am not the person for this job. Yes, I have a graduate and undergraduate degree in journalism, but I do not have the recent job-specific experience that the interviewer was looking for. At the end of the interview I was allowed to ask my own questions. I asked who constituted the primary audience. The retiring public affairs officer, in explaining the position, told me it was a one-person operation. His response was, succinctly, "You're it." That summed up his response as well as the lack of any kind of emotion or humor to this interview. After completing the interview and hanging up, I knew this job would not be mine. But as I related the experience to Barb and tried to move past my disappointment, I realized I'd learned a lesson. At my age (57) it is hard to switch careers. It can be even harder to persuade someone to rely on your ancient long-ago experience as an asset for a new job. Having been out of the profession since 1997, I have only my graduate degree to claim as recent experience. And although I love the work, I will likely utilize my talents in a different job or hobby. And that's okay. Now we are looking at another job opportunity in a vastly different field. But it would still allow me the opportunity to write as an aside. That may be my new professional avenue. And it will have humor and emotion, warmth and compassion. It will have some things that were lacking from this interview. Just thought you should know.