I had just graduated from high school and had a job operating a skidder in a pulp operation. That summer was a challenge, but I stuck with it and made some good money for college. My experience in that camp was invaluable. I learned hard work and how to perform in that kind of environment. The work was dangerous.
There were probably thirty-some French Canadians in that camp. Breakfast and supper would find us all together at three long tables taking in all the calories we could possibly hold. I knew their faces but didn’t understand their language. By their demeanor, some seemed happy, some sad, some angry, some friendly and some not so friendly. It was a mixed bag of personalities.
At this particular evening meal, one of the cutters was missing. The foreman informed me that sometime during that day a tree had fallen on this woodsman killing him. My father and some others found a piece of plywood to transport him out of the woods to await a hearse. That evening the cook room was silent, and although I didn’t know him, I missed him.
That emotion has become an undesirable part of my life over the past fifty years. I read the obituaries and too often there is a name and face I recognize. The Bible makes it clear:
Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
The circumstances will be different for everyone, but death is inevitable for all.
Think about it.
Gary