Dad A Confession, Original By Gerry Hubbard

Solidarity Forever An Operating Engineer was what my dad was called  He ran the big equipment, and I guess he drove them all Dozers, graders, drag-line cranes, he worked ten hours a day From spring through fall, six days a week, he drew good union pay He’d usually come home close to dark, all sunburned, cloaked with dust  Us kids would all race down the hill, to greet him, to be first  He’d stop the car and pick us up, on fenders up we’d ride  We hung from running boards and doors, rising like the tide Euclid scrapers, high-speed pumps, he “sloped” with Cat D8s  Through parts of west New England and all through New York State  He worked the New York Thruway and Route One-Forty-Five,  Milking cows at four am to keep the farm alive In summer’s dust and searing sun his lips and hands would crack,  And he’d rub in Bag Balm Ointment that he carried in a sack  In winter’s numbing wind and cold, he stood ten hours a day  To watch an air compressor pump water from a quay We’d go to work with him sometimes when work sites were nearby And ride the big equipment, it was dusty, hot and dry LaVerne and I and sometimes Doug would go and spend the day  With diesel fumes & roaring “Eucs” as dozers pushed away And though he had his issues, he was held in high regard  And I never heard him once complain ‘bout working so damned hard.  When someone said I looked like him at a Hill reunion chat  Tom O’Hara softly said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that”. And though I’m not religious, as all friends will attest  Here’s a spiritual iota to which I must confess  Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high  I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky... Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky