Howdy folks, Glen Blamstead here. I used to be a banker, but I lost interest. Let me tell you about it.
Now, before anyone writes in to ask which bank, calm down. I was never actually a banker in the credit-checking, suit-wearing, fluorescent-lighting sense. The closest I ever got to a career in finance was in the spring of 1986 when my cousin Dale offered me a job at the savings and loan in Cambridge counting deposit slips on Saturdays. I made it through one and a half Saturdays. Then a guy I knew called and said he had a horse trailer he needed moved from Hinckley up to Brainerd that afternoon, and I had a decision to make about my future. The horse trailer won. The savings and loan never called back, which I took as us agreeing to part on good terms.
The Real Reason I Lost Interest
What I learned about banking that day and a half is that the work is not the hard part. The hard part is sitting still. I am not a sitting-still kind of guy. My wife says I sit still about as well as a dropped slinky. I have to be doing something with my hands or my back starts complaining, and once my back joins the conversation, nobody's getting anything done.
Pole barns, on the other hand, suit me. There is always something to lift. There is always something to measure. There is always somebody hollering across the yard about a board you forgot to grab. You don't sit. You barely lean. You get to the truck at the end of the day with a slight limp and a sense of accomplishment, and you sleep like a man who did not waste his daylight.
The Wallet Incident
Of course, losing interest is one thing. Losing the wallet is another, and that brings me to this morning. I was at a jobsite outside Brook Park, looking over a new build. The truss crew was just finishing up — beautiful engineered wooden trusses going right where they belong, posts in the ground, the customer beaming. I set my wallet down on the tailgate to dig out a pencil. Just for a second. The kind of second that lasts six hours.
I forgot about the wallet. Drove off. Got to Mora. Stopped at the gas station. Reached for the wallet. No wallet.
Now, my dog, Charlie, who rides with me most days, had been giving me the side-eye since we left the jobsite. Charlie is a black Lab with an unreasonable opinion about where my wallet ought to be at all times. As I patted my pockets in the parking lot, he gave me the look he gives me when I forget his ball at home. That look says, "I am the only competent professional in this truck and we both know it."
Back To The Site
I drove back. Forty minutes round trip. Wallet, mercifully, was right where I'd left it on the tailgate. The Brook Park customer was still there, leaning on the bed of his pickup, looking at the new trusses with that small smile a man gets when he can finally see his barn. He pointed at my wallet and said, "I was wondering whose this was."
I said, "Mine. I used to be a banker, but I lost interest."
He looked at me for a second. Then he said, "Glen, you tell that joke a lot, don't you?"
I told him I had not, in fact, told that joke a lot, because today was the first day I had ever come up with it. But that, yes, having heard myself say it out loud, I had a feeling I was going to tell it a lot. He nodded the way you nod at a guy who you can already tell is going to be a problem at family gatherings.
What Charlie Thought
On the way back home, Charlie rode shotgun with his head out the window, ears flapping, looking like the happiest creature in Kanabec County. I don't think he was particularly impressed by the joke. He was, however, very much impressed by the wallet's return. Dogs care about three things: food, the people who give them food, and the items those people might lose. The wallet is on Charlie's list because the wallet pays for the food. He'd put it together a long time ago. He is sharper than he lets on.
The Moral, If There Is One
If there's a lesson here — and I'm not saying there is — it's that some of us were not put on this earth to sit behind a desk and stare at numbers. Some of us were put here to set posts, set trusses, set jokes up so badly we have to drive forty minutes back to finish them. I have made peace with which one I am.
Also: keep an eye on your wallet at the jobsite. And on your dog. Mostly your dog. He has opinions, and he's usually right.
If you've got a project rattling around in your head — pole barn, machine shed, hobby workshop, future barndominium — stop by Sherman in Mora sometime or holler at us. I will probably tell you the banker joke. I make no apologies.
Glen out.
