bump, bump, bump another one bites the dust, clap, clap
bump, bump, bump, another one bites the dust,
and another one’s down, and another one’s down,
another one bites the dust…
Ahh, the hero’s anthem. The victor striding across the field with his head held high after taking on one more unworthy opponent. Or, maybe it’s the song of the Cinderella team enjoying an unexpected breakout year. Picture Mike Tyson in his prime as he stands over one more victim with more guts than brains. You get the picture? We’ve all seen it before, right? Only this time it’s not what you think. This time we’re not talking about victory and defeat. There are no victims being left in the path of a hero. Naw, this time we’re talking about cups. Styrofoam coffee cups.
I saw them thrown to the ground. I witnessed them being slung to the ground. I observed as they were simply dropped from his hand. Most of the time they did hit the dust, but sometimes in fit of disgust they would be dashed onto the hard concrete surface of the truck scales, the continence splashing in all directions. Coffee, gallons of coffee wasted while people in deepest darkest Africa starved to death.
Circa 1978, Sawyer Flat, ten miles south east of Loop, Texas, a cotton gin stands at the intersection of a black top road, and a dirt road. The gin has just been bought by a group of five farmers and a gin manager. The gin manager has extensive experience in the industry. He is looked up too by farmers from three small farming communities in the area. A man of integrity, knowledge, and a work ethic above all others, however this giant among gin men has never encountered, a steady flow.
A steady flow is a simple machine that keeps the same amount of cotton flowing through the cotton ginning machinery at all times. It contains a hopper that fills with cotton as it comes into the gin by way of a suction tube operated by an individual. If the hopper gets full of cotton it stops the air flow of the section tube, thereby stopping more cotton from coming into the gin until there is room for more in the hopper. A good suction tube operator could work hard for a few minutes in an effort to fill the hopper. Once he had filled the hopper and the air had been shut off he could rest for a few minutes. Dad was not used to a man being able to rest while running the suction. All of his ginning experience told him that if the section operator stopped there was trouble in the gin, and trouble in the gin was never a good thing. He’d spent years watching out the window of the office to make sure that the suction tube was moving back and forth delivering a supply of cotton to the gin. Year after year he had opened the door of the office and headed to the gin every time the suction stopped moving because he knew something was wrong, and every time he headed out that office door he seemed to have a cup of coffee in his hand. Invariably that coffee cup ended up on the ground as he threw, slung, or dropped it so he could start putting on a pair of gloves and get to work helping fix the problem in the gin.
It was instinctive for him to leave the office, and go out to the gin to see what the problem was. He did it without thinking, it was ingrained in him because of prior experience, but now things were different. That tube stopping didn’t automatically mean that there was trouble in the gin. Now he was jumping to the conclusion that there was trouble. Now he had a knee jerk response to a non-existent problem, and that’s the reason I told you this whole story. I think there many of us who need to stop jumping to conclusions. I think there are a many of us who need to take a sip of that nice hot cup of coffee, and think before we act or react in a way that would keep us from enjoying the warmth of life.
Till next time,
Grump