When I was a youngster, I though anyone over 20 was old.

 

I guess my world was pretty limited back then. Most of my friends were my age, and anyone who was out of high school was a grownup.

 

It seems kids don’t always differentiate between age groups other than their own. When I was in the third grade, I know even the kids a grade ahead of me seemed much older (and bigger). So imagine how I felt about someone who was already out of high school.

 

But as the years went by and I moved into and out of high school, I began to understand the difference between age groups.

 

I understood that there were college students in their 20s, and there were parents not much older than that.

 

People in their 30s were a bit more mature, with kids of their own in school.

 

Those in their 40s might have adult kids, or at least in high school and college.

 

I was just 18 and right out of high school when I got my first real job in 1974. I worked in a distribution warehouse on the New Jersey docks with guys of all different ages.

 

It was the first time I really had a chance to meet, and be friends with, people of different generations who weren’t my relatives.

 

There was Lucas, or “Luke” as everyone called him. He looked like he was in his 40s. He didn’t say much, but worked like a machine. I found out later he was supporting a wife and five kids, and he worked a second job at night.

 

I guess that’s why I’d see him sleeping on a stack of pallets at lunchtime almost every day.

 

Then there was Pat, the warehouse bookie, probably in his 50s. Pat always had a cigar in his mouth - not always lit. He was like a computer, spewing out scores from the night before and odds for the next game or boxing match coming up.

 

Pat talked fast and had lots of words of wisdom for the younger workers.

 

“Take it easy,” he’d say. “You’re getting paid by the hour.”

 

I don’t know if I ever saw him lift a box, but somehow he lasted there for years.

 

There were those who really didn’t want to be there - guys who’d show up with a hangover or looked like they were sleepwalking after a late night out.

 

A few guys a bit older than myself worked there a few months until they saved up enough to buy a car. Then they were gone.

 

Then there was “Mac”, a black man from South Carolina who did maintenance duty, and had been there for almost 30 years. He must have been in his late 60s, and everyone called him, “old man.” It was an endearing way for everyone to acknowledge that he was the senior statesman of the warehouse.

 

Mac always had something to say whenever he passed by where I was working.

 

Over the years, he’d seen lots of teens start out at the warehouse. Some lasted a few days, some a few years. Others made it their career.

 

Mac said he could tell by the way I worked and by my attitude, that I would probably be there awhile.

 

It was hard work, but for me, it was a way to make money and stay in shape by doing something physical. And the nine-to-five schedule allowed to me to play baseball at night.

 

I stayed at the warehouse for 13 years. Then I was promoted a supervisory position at night while I went to school in the daytime for another three years.

 

They finally closed the building I was working in, and I used my education to find another job in marketing before coming to Minnesota.

 

I don’t know whatever happened to the guys at the warehouse. But I heard it closed quite a few years back.

 

I sometimes think how my life would have been so much different if I’d stayed there.

 

I guess they’d be calling me “old man” now