Taking a break for a selfie
"Neil, we need four-inch bandages."
"Hey, Neil, we need compress bandages."
"Neil, tourniquets."
During the past two weeks I have spent several days in a warehouse in New Jersey packing emergency medical kits for people in Ukraine. If you want to donate or volunteer visit the Razom for Ukraine website.
Yesterday, I became the guy who refills the boxes for the assembly line putting together the combat medical kits. I worked unwrapping tourniquets until one of the boxes of bandages was low. Then would take a box off of a pallet, cut it open and switch the empty for a full box.
Our assembly line
Nearly sixty years ago, when I was 12 years old, I started working summers and Saturdays at Food Center Wholesale Grocers in Charlestown, Massachusetts. I swept floors and picked up trash in the two-acre warehouse with dozen of truck and railcar loading doors and shelves more than thirty feet tall. I earned $1.60 per hour, paid taxes and paid into the Social Security account I have been getting checks from for more than six years.
For two decades, I worked in warehouses, loading docks and was a soldier. I liked working with my hands, but at age 32 I got a job as a writer at an ad agency and left labor for white collar work.
Coming back to lifting boxes after all these years has been delightful. When I leave, I am sore and dirty and have the good feeling of being a part of something worthwhile. While we pack supplies, we laugh, joke, and share the joy of doing something will truly help people who are under attack by an evil regime.
