HUMBLENESS

                                              

My dad was a dyed in the wool railroader most of his working life. He could sit at a railroad crossing, in his car, smiling and watching every boxcar pass on a 100-car freight train, as if he personally had something to do with it being there. He loved to talk about the big train wrecks he worked at with his jobs on the wrecking crew. Clearing a wreck and getting the trains rolling again, made him feel like a Marine wading ashore on Iwo Jima, sent to take the Island back from the Japanese. When he talked about his role in the Union-- “The Brotherhood of the Railroad Carmen of America”-- he would puff up like Jimmy Hoffa did when he was in front of the Teamsters. He talked like a railroader and thought like a railroader.  I would bury my nose in his denim jacket, with a hug, when he came home from work and he even smelt like the railroad. So deep was his dedication to his job-- but yet, through it all, he was a humble man who knew he was just part of a team, proud to do his part.

Today in America so much emphasis has been put on money, degrees and success that we have denigrated the American blue color worker to something, necessary but not worth getting too excited about. In fact, in a lot of instances we have shifted that part of the jobs overseas where we don’t have to watch it being done and the people doing it, don’t have to be paid a living wage. Have you ever noticed how many people have a title now days? I have a friend who earned a P.H.D in education. Today twenty years after her retirement, she still signs her name Doctor, so and so. She still doesn’t realize that right now, she is just one of the masses and being truly humble, doesn’t require credentials. I signed a book I wrote; to a man I once worked for, who had been retired for years and was now a personal friend. When I asked him how he wanted it signed he said, make it out to the Director of---you get the picture. Even after all of those illustrious years, it was hard to come down to earth with the rest of us. Mac Davis sang a song called “Oh Lord it’s hard to be Humble.” Guess he didn’t know how prophetic he was, even though he was joking about it.

On the railroad the engineer drives the train. But it wouldn’t run without the man who greased the bearings on the boxcars. Or the person who refueled the steam engines with coal and water and the man who crawled into the boilers and removed the clinkers or the people who put the train together. They all had their jobs and they were proud to do them. So often we forget the supporting staff that is behind the success of our leaders. My dad, the railroader, had this little verse memorized and he would recite it often.

It’s not my job to run the train, the whistle I don’t blow.

It’s not my job to say how far the train is supposed too go.

I’m not allowed to pull the brake or even ring the bell.

But let the damn thing jump the track and see who catches hell.

C.S, Lewis once said “True humility is not thinking less about yourself but thinking about yourself less.” I have always felt that life itself is a lesson in humility because just when you think you know it all or have all the answers, you meet someone who knows something you don’t know.