Part 13 (1/2)

It's a very simple job. Just about

anyone could do it that wants to.

CAMPGROUND MAINTENANCE WORKER.

Marie Sprague.

I'm a laborer for the U.S. National Park Service. I clean up around the Seawall campground in Acadia National Park. That's on Mount Desert Island in Maine. I was born here, on the island, and I've lived most all of my life here. I'm sixtynine years old. Before this, I worked for forty years at the sardine canneries in Bar Harbor. When they all shut down, I had a friend working at the park and they had an opening. She said, ”Go get your application in in January,” and I did. Come spring, I got hired. That was thirteen years ago.

We start up in the middle of May, when the tourists come in. And I work until October the twelfth. It's a seasonal job. Five months. I don't work winters. [Laughs] Winters, I just put on weight.

The first few years here, I went out what they call ”roadsiding” in a truck with another girl. We picked up trash and cleaned restrooms at Sandbeach and the different camping and parking areas around Acadia-at Thunderhole and all those places. I still do that same thing, but now I stay just in the Seawall campground. For the last eight or nine years, I've just been at Seawall every day.

There's a lot of walking around involved in this. I've never done so much walking. Not since I was a youngster, anyway. When I worked in the sardine factory we stood in just one place, you know, packed fish. Forty years of that. It's good to be working outside. Seeing trees and nature and everything. I really like it. Sometimes it rains hard, but we have rain gear we put on. We still work. Put our rain gear on and go. It's not so bad. It gets cold sometimes, too, but I'm used to it. I don't even put a jacket on until it gets January. I hate a jacket. I'll be working in October here just like this-in short sleeves. Everybody else is freezing to death! It's chilly, fifties, sixties. It doesn't bother me.

The only time I'm inside is when I'm cleaning those restrooms. I have six restrooms that I do each day. I used to do twelve, but now another girl takes half of them. The restrooms aren't so great. There's some bad odors sometimes-and some messes. But you get used to it. I don't really mind anymore. [Laughs] I don't like it, but I don't mind.

Yesterday an old man came into the restroom while I was in the stall and he thought there was a man cleaning. When he saw me, he said, ”Oops, there's a lady cleaner.” I was outside by then, because you know he had to go really quick and the odor in there wasn't too good. So I got outside, and he says, ”Don't come back in here.” He says, ”I haven't got my pants on yet all the way up.” And I says, ”I'm not! I'm not coming in!” [Laughs] That kind of thing happens sometimes. He was a nice fellow, though. Very polite. Some of 'em come in and they'll go right and use the urinal and I'll say, ”You are not supposed to be in here. We are closed for cleaning.” And they'll say, ”Well, I don't mind if you don't.” But I do mind. I don't like to be in those bathrooms with anybody. But when I'm in the stall and I come out and he's over there using the urinal, what are you going to do? [Laughs] Sometimes they listen to me, though. There was one that hollered to me today and said, ”Can I come in?” I says, ”No, go to the next building!” And he went. Nice fellow.

I work five days a week, seven in the morning to three in the afternoon. The whole time is spent just constantly doing something. You know, we try and keep ourselves busy. We don't kill ourselves, but we try to keep busy. Like today we've got caught up on the bathrooms, so we've been out picking up litter and raking campsites, whatever we can find to do, getting the rocks out and the pinecones, makes it a little more uniform for them to put their tents and stuff down on the ground.

When we've done all we can, maybe we'll go back and re-check the bathrooms to see if there are any messes in 'em, if they need more toilet paper. Yesterday, we finished everything early and, see that building over there? I done windows in it. Took the screens out, cleaned all of 'em.

It's a very simple job. Just about anyone could do it that wants to. I could probably do it in my sleep. [Laughs]

Most of the tourists are nice. A lot of them say, ”Good morning” and ”How are you today?” They don't even really litter so much now anymore. The campsites are a lot cleaner these days, they pick up after themselves a lot better. Once in a while, we'll find a fireplace full of beer bottles or pop cans, or stuff like that. But we just go take them out. It's not hard at all.

I've been working since I was sixteen. I wish now I'd started out here when I was a lot younger. Really, I wish I'd just worked here the whole time. It would have been a lot easier job than what I had to do in the past. The fish factories were awful hard. We worked sometimes from daylight till dark-near all day and half the night. And the whole time, we had to stand right there steady and just pack fish, and cut tails off them and put them in cans. It was pretty tiring, I'll tell ya. Sometimes you could sit down, but I couldn't sit. Some women could, but I couldn't sit down and do it. Sometimes I done twentyfour hours straight. Standing there, cutting up sardines. Lucky if you got home and got into bed.

It was just bad work. You had to be a real fast packer in order to even make any money. They paid so much a case and if you didn't make the hourly time, they wouldn't have to pay you the rate. If you were a slow packer, you didn't make your money. And the sharp scissors, oh, I don't know how many injured fingers and that sort of thing I cut. I got scars on my hands, I got more arthritis than anything from cutting and using the scissors so much. I had to have both hands operated on between the fingers right here. They cut little-oh, I can't remember what they said they was in there for-but they cut 'em, clipped 'em. My fingers sometimes would go like this and just curl up and I couldn't even straighten 'em out. There's a lot of women who worked in that factory picking crabmeat and they've had the same problem and they've had their hands operated on and they never got better. And we had no insurance, no nothing.

This is like G.o.d's gift, this job. I feel very lucky to have it. When the factories closed, I didn't know what to do. It's hard for me to get work on the island because I wasn't educated, you know, to do much of anything. I probably could've done restaurant work, but I don't like that. This job saved me.

I love being out here. I like the outdoors. I go outdoors a lot in the wintertime when I'm not working, go sledding and stuff. I've always done that. I like to do it now with the grandchildren. I keep up with them. [Laughs] I pull my own sled. It's great fun. And it's so beautiful here. I've been to other places and I think this is about the prettiest place there is around. Not many people can say that they live in one of the prettiest places in the world. But really, it is really beautiful. Look around-there's the sand beach and the cliffs, Otter Point and Cadillac Mountain. Trees everywhere. Just real beauty.

I'm going to keep this job as long as I can go. The pay is good, eleven thirty-eight an hour. I need the money because when I have to retire, I won't be getting anything but Social Security. That will be it. And I don't ever want to have to leave this island. All my family is around me-my husband, all my children, grandchildren. My great-grandchildren. I was born and always lived here. I've gone to Ma.s.sachusetts-Lockstone, Ma.s.sachusetts-didn't stay long, went to Connecticut, didn't stay long there, either. I've been to Florida a couple times, didn't think too much of it. This is the place for me.

We try to add a lot of psychoactives to

the ordeal.

LAWN MAINTENANCE MAN.

Brian Zeigler.

I'm a lawn maintenance worker. Lawn maintenance man. Otherwise known as a lawn pimp! Ze mower! Mowin' some gra.s.s! [Laughs] I work for A-1 Lawn Care and Snow Removal in Ann Arbor, Michigan. [Laughs] A-1! Bob Newton's the boss. We call him Fruitin' Newton or Fig Newton. Because he's one of those guys that just like comes at ya. Like all intense and insane, and he never knows what's goin' on or what he's talking about, you know? So he'll be like, ”Make sure to lube your mowers!” You know? Or something, you know. Or, ”It's going to be a mowing marathon today!” And he's always touching you and he's always-hoo, hoo, hoo [ape sounds]-like he's on c.o.ke or something, you know what I mean? Just always freakin' out.

Yeah, Bob Newton. He's a good guy, though. He is. Good boss. [Laughs] He owns and runs the company. Never cuts a lawn, though. Never. His family has money, I believe-because we cut like his grandpa's house in Barton Hills. That's all like million-dollar homes out there, like a private neighborhood or whatever. They have their own country club and golf course and everything. Most, like, big businessmen own houses there. [Laughs] You know, Mike Illedge has a house there. Mike Illedge is the Pizza Man. He owns Little Caesar's-or one of the pizza things. I'm pretty sure it's Little Caesar's. Or Domino's. One of those. He owns some sports teams, too, I think. Yeah, pizza-that's a high-profit business right there if you're the king pizza man, you know? [Laughs] It's like-then you can pay me to cut your lawn. [Laughs]

I like it, man. I just like to work outside, for the most part, you know. And then I like to be boss-free, where I can do whatever I want in the day. Not, like, constrained and bored, you know what I mean? I mean, you get bored mowing lawns, but I don't really think about that. You can think about whatever you want out here, you know? Where, like, another job-like in an office-you have to focus on how bored you are.

I started doing this as a summer thing. I had friends that were doing it, and they got me in. Then I started doing a little bit in the winter when I wasn't in school. Plowin' snow. So it used to be like an occasional thing, but now-it's a pa.s.sion! [Laughs] Seriously, man, it's just, you know, a pretty goofy job. I mean, a ridiculous job. And now I'm doin' it full-time.

You know, I go in every day. Sharpen the blades, get the equipment all workin'. I show up usually seven, eight. Between seven and eight. Usually hit the lawns about nine, you know, start mowin'. We usually all meet up in the morning and all smoke down, too. Because that's like the morning ritual, you know. Everybody-everyone from A-1, like sixteen of us-we pick a different spot each morning and after we leave the shop, before we all split up, you know, it all starts with the morning bake-down and then-and then we'll meet up for lunch again, and then meet up at the end of the day and it's just-you know, we try to stay pretty delirious out there. We try to add a lot of psychoactives to the ordeal. [Laughs]

We all have the common interest of smoking marijuana. It almost is like this cult. A clique. We all have that in common. Plus just humor. Humor plays a big part in it, you know? To get through everything, I think you need a lot of humor. [Laughs] Because it is pretty taxing. I mean, physically sometimes, you know. Between the noise and walking all over everywhere, you know? I mean, these are huge f.u.c.king lawns. Miles of f.u.c.king gra.s.s. People can't mow it themselves. So like, we're out there forever, you know, out in the sun-just the weather all the time. Riding around on those big f.u.c.king vibrating mowers. The seats on those things will just totally give you hemorrhoids! And when it rains you get swamp foot. Which is like-you get soaked feet, man, and then you've got to work through the day with some wet feet. Plus, you know, whatever-you're inhaling exhaust. And fertilizer. People put nasty f.u.c.king chemicals on their lawns. We got a fertilizer guy and he usually comes like two days before we do and he wears like a respirator and a backpack and s.h.i.+t. [Laughs] Spraying this cancerous s.h.i.+t. And then we come in like a day or two later and just ride around on it. [Laughs] So you want the delirium, man. You want it pretty bad.

My crew, we do the big lawns. There's like maybe four crews that deal with the big lawns. And then another four like deal with the smaller ones, you know. So we ride. We're on the hydraulic mowers, and they like fly. They go fast. Yeah. Sixty-one-inch decks each.

I'm the ”crew leader”-which means I like drive the truck to the job and go through the lists and all that. What we gotta do next, you know? Where we're going. It's pretty much bulls.h.i.+t. The only reason that I'm like, whatever, the crew leader is because my friend Tim broke his wrist. Because he-I used to just work-and then he broke his wrist skateboarding so I had to take over the crew. [Laughs] Because to be a crew leader, you have to be able to drive the truck. And Tim can't do it with a broken wrist. So Bob gave Tim's job to me.

There's other guys who've been here longer than me, but the reason I got chosen for that is because Bob is just like impressed by people like myself that go to college and thinks that they're [laughs] you know, whatever. He doesn't even have to know ya. He'll just like ya if you went to school. Just because, I mean, this kind of job can attract more lower end-lower education, you know, people. I mean, some of the dudes on these other crews are not always, like, the most intense workers. And some of them are these kind of questionable characters. For instance, like, everybody's been to jail at least once. And a lot of people drink all the time. They're into liquid lunches.

It's so easy to f.u.c.k off on the job, I mean, you know. n.o.body's there watchin' ya. No one cares. I mean, we're out in the boonies. n.o.body's around us anyways. There's no traffic. It's not like a subdivision or somethin'.

But actually, we don't really get that much time to goof around, you know. [Laughs] Not as much as I'd like. There's just always so many lawns to do. You've just got to keep doin' it. And then stuff will always break down, you know. We're always havin' to bring a mower into the shop and you'll be down one mower. Or a trimmer won't work or stuff's just always breakin' down. And usually we have to fix it. We're the ones who have to try to figure out what's goin' on. That gets dull fast.

Tim says-and this makes sense in a way-that this is really a high school kid's job. That, you know, I mean, like there's eighteen-yearolds here and stuff. And, you know, we're all like twenty-four, twentyfive. [Laughs] I mean, everyone that I work with, you know what I mean? So it's just like-it does seem like a high school kid's job. You know, like a summer job that some kid would have and then leave, you know. But a lot of people have been here for like six, seven years. It's kind of wild.

And, I mean, everyone's makin' all right money, you know? I mean, it's like ten bucks an hour plus you get use of your truck, plus insurance. I guess that's-what does that work out to be? I don't know. Maybe thirty-if you had everything, maybe thirty a year, you know? So it's not, like, unreasonable that a person might do this all year round.

Last year, though, was the first where I personally did that. And- I don't know. It's definitely a job I don't see myself doing forever. But for right now it works. I think this may be the last summer I'm doing it because it's going to be 2000, you know, and I've been partying like it's 1999 for like [laughs] ten years or something, so I think after this [laughs]-after the year 2000 I'm going to quit. I'm going to be like more, you know. I'll be-I'll be-I don't know what I'm going to do.

I mean, my job right now is cool because-my best ideas tend to come out of boredom, you know, whatever comes out of like, not having everything to do but just to sit there and think, you know? When you're on the lawn, you know, you haven't got anything else to do but, you know, let your mind go. I'm just better at jobs like that, man.

But I'm going to finish up school. And then maybe I'll try to get one of those jobs where you can wear khaki pants and relax. [Laughs] Then maybe I'd end up turning into one of those people-those people who just want to be out on the lawn, but can't be there. They want to have the big house, they want to have a nice lawn and everything. But they're never on it, man. They're never there. I think everyone wants to be out on the lawn, you know? They're in their job and where they really want to be is on the lawn and right now, I'm on the lawn. I mean, that's just-that's the truth of it, you know. They never do anything on these huge lawns and these huge houses and it's like-I don't know.

I mean most of 'em-if they do care they're just really picky about how it looks. It's not England, man. That's what everyone wants is like those English lawns. And it's not. The gra.s.s here is different. It doesn't grow like that, you know. It grows tall, you know. [Laughs] Or whatever. And they just never-but they never go on it, you know. It doesn't even matter because n.o.body's on their lawn. I am.