Recently I celebrated my 25th year as a baggage handler for the Company. In that time period I have done many things BECAUSE I worked for the Company–traveled overseas, bought a house, transferred to a different state and back, had a couple kids, got married, purchased vehicles (not in that same order) and I am thankful for what has come to be two and a half decades for what I originally thought was just going to be a summer job. My teen recently asked if I liked my job and I can whole heartedly say “yes”, otherwise I would have left long ago. My career as a medical secretary lasted less than eight months so you can imagine how much I loved that job. As the teen is on the verge of entering the adult work world, I did say that I didn’t always like aspects of my job or certain policies the Company implemented, but that the job itself made possible so many things in my life that add to the person I have come to be.
One of the things my job has paid three years ago was a young Elberta peach tree. My sister who farmed had a peach tree at one of her properties and ever since then I have been enchanted with having a peach tree. The property I live at is a small city lot and has no shade since everyone cuts down their massive trees that provide shade, property value, leaves, and unintentionally damages small things in it’s 300 year life span. My yard has no space for a soaring oak and I don’t have the lifespan to see it to it’s fullest growth, but I can get a peach. The peach sapling was purchased at the orange-colored hardware megastore and to get it home I had to stick it through my sunroof. From the driver’s seat it looked like a massive tree but when I got home and dug it into the ground… well, it looked rather small, though in today’s teen vernacular, ‘smol’ was more appropriate. It was watered, it was fertilized, and I even put a small lawn chair beneath it just to sit beneath my shade tree.
Two years have passed and I have dealt with and learned about peach curl (an airborne virus), pruning, and crop losses. The first year I think six peaches burst forth from the blossoms but were killed by the peach curl, blackening them when the size of a US quarter. The second year had more blossoms, about a dozen peaches burst forth, and made it to golf ball size before peach curl and squirrels did away with them. This past winter, things changed!! I pruned at the correct time, fertilized at the correct time, and in the spring when the leaves came forth and began to twist in viral agony, I plucked them off and threw them away. My tree exploded with blossoms and has now exploded with fruit. I am a victim of success and am hopefully only a week away from ripe peaches. There is one thing I did not know until the farming sister told me–thin the peaches out to one peach every six inches on a branch. That would have been good to know a couple months ago and alas, two branches have already broken off from the weight of the fruit. I’ve thinned out the branches I can reach and pray that our fence can keep holding up the couple branches resting on it.
So my career with the Company has come to this: There are good years, there are bad years (hello 9/11 and COVID), and with steady maintenance life can get pretty peachy in the status quo of okay years. I’ve spent twenty five years throwing luggage and perhaps if I am fortunate, my peach tree will also make it that long. They aren’t long living trees and I don’t know how long my body will last at this career, but I have few regrets along the way. And my 25 year anniversary pin from the Company? It’s about the size of a nickel. My dead peaches were more impressive.
Life By Baggage 