Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Dad

My dad says the toll booth operators on the Jersey Turnpike own New Jersey. If they're having a good day, you love the Garden State. They're in a mood, and you hate the place. First impressions are everything.

Dad knows. He works for a man in Fairfield County who has a huge piece of property that needs constant maintenance and lots of flowers because dad's boss likes flowers. Planting flats upon flats--picture hundreds brought in on a trailer, not a dozen or so plants in your trunk--is back-breaking work, and dad needs help. So he gets the help of immigrants in need of a day's work. These guys make more than a lot of us with our college degrees because they do the work we're all too good for. (It's the American way that we read about in our college history texts.)

A couple of years ago, dad met up with one guy from South America who had nothing. He lived in a tenement downtown with a bunch of other guys from the same country. They created their own boarding house, taking turns cooking and deciding on the night's TV program, who gets the bed by the window....The whole thing. They scrimp and save and cooperate to make their lives better and their families' lives better back home.

This one guy my dad met encountered heaven on earth in my dad, who would pick him up in the morning, buy him coffee and lunch and sodas throughout the day, bring him home or to his appointments. On top of that, he gave him some excellent clothing, an air conditioner, and other bits of equipment and furniture to make his life more comfortable down in the barrio.

It's what my dad does. He was born in Jersey, but he has always lived in Connecticut, where he started with nothing but has always worked hard year after year--and has always found something to give away. First impressions count. If my dad is Connecticut's gate keeper, the world knows this is a beautiful place. Just ask that guy from South America.