VOLUNTEER: THERE’S ALWAYS THAT ONE GUY

Have you ever been a volunteer and worked on a team and had to do teamwork stuff? Was it fun?

Add family members with attitude on a house tear down and see how it goes.

While it wasn’t a competition, I tore a house down with said family members and felt the need to prove I was better at it than them.

What attitude?

And I was better, like a tornado. Rip the inside walls down. There goes the roof, boom. One side sawed loose and pushed into the middle, bam.

“Slow down,” they said. “Take it easy, you look tired.”

I was tired, but also sunburned, dehydrated, and bleeding, but still a tornado until they decided to quit.

“Let’s keep going,” I said.

“It’s dark.”

“Bring the cars out and light it up.”

“We’re done.”

Since it was out in rural Oregon, five miles down a dirt road just across the tracks from a tiny town, I spent the night in a tent. The rest had trailers.

I spent the night shivering in shock. Not a great night, but memorable enough. I wanted the old man to know what he had.

The same thing happened on a firewood work day. I jumped around, grabbing and moving, wearing a t-shirt and scraping hell out of my arms. I had more cuts on my forearms than I did the summer I pulled greenchnain in a plywood mill.

Again, I worked for the approval of my dad. It wasn’t a given.

Now I’m an older man who enjoys the comradery of others for the sake of sharing time together, for the gentle banter, the easy opinions, the useful work pace.

Unless it’s in the woods. Then I’ll work myself half to death, or why bother?

A Good Volunteer

My wife joined a wonderful group to support a local park. I applauded her feel for community service. Secretly I heard the advice I got before joining the army: “Never volunteer for anything.”

Since it was the army, you never knew what the real end was by volunteering. Besides, I wasn’t drafted, I volunteered to be there, so I’d already volunteered.

That was enough volunteering for a lifetime, maybe two. But I got married, had kids, and realized people who volunteered to coach youth sports had agendas.

For their kids.

So began a decade of coaching soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, football, baseball, wrestling. My last day on the coaching hot seat was my youngest’s senior year rec basketball team.

Again, enough of the volunteering. Two teams every season for two kids, fall, winter, spring. It was one of the joys of my life, but still, enough.

A month out, my wife started talking about the park work volunteer day she’d planned.

Three days out we talked about it:

Her: I hope the weather clears for the Saturday morning work crew.

Him: Saturday?

Her: Saturday morning.

Him: Did we talk about this?

Her: You’ve heard about it. You were home when we had planning meetings.

Him: Do you want to ask me to come along?

Her: What? Of course you’re coming.

Him: To keep the relationship alive, instead of slipping into old married couple stuff like assuming everything all of the time, go ahead and ask me.

Her: Do you really need a formal invitation to something you know you’ll like?

(This is the tricky teamwork competition I learned from watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It opens with a card game, then cheating accusations, a showdown where the accuser learns he’s facing the Sundance Kid and sure death. The only way out is Butch telling the man to invite them to stay. “Much obliged if you’d stay,” the accuser said. “Thank you, but we’ve got to run,” Butch said, scooping up the winnings off the table.)

Volunteer Like Sundance

Him: Yes, that would be nice.

Her: Would you like to join me in a work party in the park?

Him: The park nearby? The park where we walk the paths up and down the hills?

Her: Yes, that park.

Him: The park where we met the chainsaw wood carver, the place a house used to sit?

Her: Is this fun for you? Yes, that park.

Him: Why thank you, I’d love to join in. I’m glad you asked.

Her: This is normal?

Him: I like to call it manners, like the manners we see displayed so well on English mysteries.

Her: Murder mysteries, and it’s not going to kill you to be a part of this.

Him: Looking forward to the fun.

Her: They have the tools you’ll need.

Him: Do they have the loop spade? The claw?

Her: I don’t know.

Him: Then I’ll bring my own.

Her: They have gloves.

Him: Big gloves?

Her: I don’t know.

Him: I’ll bring my own.

Volunteer Fun

On a clear Saturday morning the work crew gathered. These were people well trained to spot invasive species, cut trails, and clean things up.

I was late and joined work in progress. Three of us pulled ivy, filled a wheel barrow which one of us, not me, pushed to the dumpster.

Halfway through the day we had extra wheel barrows running ivy. I relapsed into motivated woods guy and pulled ivy off everything from trees to stumps to everything on the ground that looked like ivy.

Since it was my ‘pull day’ in the gym, I used the work crew as warm up.

The time passed quickly, I babbled on and on, took a few dives in the brush, and felt like I’d represented my forest heritage.

It was a good feeling, volunteer good.