I was working in my yard this week, cutting grass, trimming weeds, fixing my fence, etc.  When I work outdoors I have a uniform that I like to wear.  I wear a heavy pair of cargo pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a dusty old pair of work boots.  Even in the hot Australia sun.  It’s one of my routines as reliable as listening to Cat Stevens when I’m sad or Al Green when I miss my wife.

While I was out there, eating the dust kicked up off of my brier patch and sweating up a storm, I began to wonder when I started wearing this work uniform.  I remember mowing lawns for money as a kid, wearing tennis shoes and basketball shorts.  What sparked the change?  Why did I studiously adopt this change even at my own personal discomfort?

I realized that I changed my work outfit when I met a man named Stanley.

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Growing up, I found that often times I identified more with the black kids at my school than the white ones.  Whether I was in Monterrey, CA or Abilene, TX or Stillwater, OK or Milwaukee, WI, I always made fast friends with black people.  There were a few reasons for it in our common experiences – the matriarchal households, the common experiences of growing up poor, the ability to play and adventure without toys or gadgets, and the understanding that people sometimes judge you based on something you have no control over.

When I was in college, I was living with one of my best friends (Johnnie) in the black part of town, very small but well known.  His family lived close by, just down the block in fact, and we spent many nights taking advantage of his Grandma Bernice’s cooking – I’m talking ribs, pork chops, macaroni & cheese, greens, beans, chicken – good old fashion Southern soul food.  I remember the cutting up in the warm kitchen in the back while Grandma cooked and the kids waited for her instructions – “grab me that plate, baby” or “ya’ll cut out that foolishness before I thump you on your head.”

I’ve written about this family a few times on this website: Black-Up and They Called Me White Chocolate.

Before I continue, permit me a tangent.  One thing that I’ve noticed about black families in the South is how open they are to new people – the walls of family are very porous.  Just hanging around his grandma’s house, I became one of the familiar faces.  Cousins started hanging out with me, aunts and uncles started teasing me like the other boys, and Grandma Bernice gave me smiles and kisses on the cheek.  They joked that I had been adopted by the chocolate.  And I have to admit that coming from where I did, it felt pretty good.

There are a bevvy of historical and sociological theories and indicators on the accepting nature of African American families as opposed to other races and cultures, such as Asians for instance.  I learned these in college and I won’t talk about them here because coming from me, I’m worried that they would sound paternalistic or presumptuous.

From this mix of uncles and aunts, cousins and siblings, African in-laws, nieces and nephews, Stanley was the grandfather, though through marriage not by blood.  He didn’t talk at all.  I can count probably less than five times that I’ve heard him speak and even then only a handful of words.  He spent most of his time that I was around on the fringe of the conversation, silently listening, and occasionally cracking a smile from beneath his broad brimmed hat if someone said something particularly funny.

Stanley stood about 5′ 8″ and could not possibly weigh more than 140 pounds with boots on.  Yet even at sixty his body was lean and covered with the muscle of an athlete, sinewy and lithe.  His hands marked his profession.  They were enormous, the largest hands I’ve ever seen.  They looked like they belonged to a man twice his size, broad and powerful, and thickly calloused.

I remember the first time I shook his hand, my hand simply disappeared.  But despite his powerful grip, his handshake was gentle.  Stanley mowed yards around town and did landscaping and had done so for many, many years. Everyday he’d load up his beaten-up work truck with his mower and tools, wearing the same outfit – a heavy flannel shirt, overalls, and work boots, making his stops around the richer parts of Stillwater to mow, trim, rake, and water.

Every day, rain or shine.

Men like Stanley did not have the opportunity to go to college.  He did not have career counselors advising him on the benefits of an engineering degree versus finance.  He was essentially born to a second class existence in a time when few cared about the upward mobility of the American minority.  His lot in life was landscaper.  But he embraced it fully without complaint.  He worked tirelessly.  His customers, all white, raved about his reliability, diligence, and care in his work.  The man was proud to bring home a pocket full of cash for a hard day’s work in the sun.

There was one day that he asked Johnnie and I to rake up a side road in the neighborhood from a thicket of long, thorny reeds, and collected garbage.  He was one of those people that took pride in his area and probably was just cleaning up the street because it offended his sensibilities, without any reward.  I doubt that he really needed any help as it was as menial a job as possible – maybe 30 minutes work.  My guess is that he was giving us the opportunity to impress him by doing a good job, a very subtle test to see if we were worth a damn or not.

To our credit, we jumped at the chance and diligently cleaned up and sacked all of the garbage without complaint.  In fact, most of the time we worked, I listened to Johnnie proudly tell stories about Stanley when he was a young man.   When we finished, I was surprised when he handed each of us a $20 bill after our short labor.  I thought I was repaying their kindness in the kitchen rather than doing actual work.  But I was in college, poor as hell, and it was greatly appreciated.

That Christmas Eve I was invited to spend it with my newly adopted family.  With the childhood I had, I think I ending up spending more holidays with friends and their families than I did my own starting from the age of eighteen.  I didn’t expect anything more than a good dinner and someplace friendly to spend the evening.  I normally chose to spend Christmas morning by myself if I wasn’t driving a few hours to see my grandma.  I didn’t have any presents or money and I felt that it was sacred family time that I shouldn’t intrude on for others.

That particular Christmas Eve, Grandma Bernice called the kids into the dining room.  I dawdled behind until she called me by name to line up with the others.  Stanley came in from the kitchen and without words or ceremony, stuffed $40 into the hands of each of the kids standing there.  Including me.  I was dumbstruck, looking around as if he had made a mistake.  I said thank you perhaps a dozen times and he only responded with a nod and a soft “Merry Christmas.”  There was something about him that reminded me of my own grandma.  She was a hard worker too and at times she would sneak out to get us a bucket of KFC from down the street without telling us until she got back.  Little things, small gestures, that a little reward could offered … but the fact that there was such generosity in such hard working people make the gifts to their loved ones so much more appreciated far beyond the moment.

Getting such an endorsement from such a quiet, modest man was hugely important to me.  I realized at that moment that I was truly a part of their family more than just in jest or proximity.  It is a fact that is continually illustrated to me as the years pass, even as I live in Australia.

Whenever I think of Stanley, I inevitably start thinking about the past.  Black history in America is a very complicated one, starting with colonial slavery until today.  The slow movement to equality was predicated on charismatic orators and spiritual leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X communicating to the rest of America the travesty of justice intrinsic to the black experience.  They created the iron resolve among their own people not to settle for these abuses any longer and they gave a focus on institutionalized racism to the rest of the country.  These men, their efforts, and their sacrifices are well chronicled.

What is less celebrated are the silent heroes of history.  Those men and women of color that suffered under the yoke of discrimination, but faced life with persistent dignity and indefatigable dedication to work.  You can see the fiery determination in their eyes in the old black and white photographs even as their faces and bodies show the heavy weight of poverty.  In their hearts, they carried the small candlelight of hope from generation to generation, enduring unbelievable pain and injustice through the darkest days, until that small light could find the right conditions to grow and grow into real change, real freedom.

I believe I have a unique viewpoint from my own experiences on suffering.  Toughness is the ability to suffer and persist.  The history of black America is one of great suffering.  But also one of survival.  They persisted, even thrived, because there were individuals out there that had the courage and the strength to work hard every day at the least rewarding jobs.  To suffer, to endure, to carry on.  Stanley embodies this in every way for me.

I know now that I wear my work outfit because it makes me think of him and his work ethic.  When I’m wearing the long sleeves in the sun, covered in sweat, I somehow channel part of his energy or his focus.  There is a lesson from all of this:

Work ethic is learned.

It’s perhaps the most important trait you can possess that will guarantee that you will never go hungry and that you can always provide for your family.  You do not appear on this earth with it innately blessed.  For most people, it is learned from their parents.  They model after watching their mom or dad for a lifetime of planning, diligence, and hard work.

That’s not how it worked for me.  Instead, whatever work ethic I learned, I had to find externally.  I had to search for it, because my own mother and father had so little to offer.  Throughout my life, there were people, I believe divinely placed, from who I learned this trait.  Those people that worked their asses off without complaining, without hiding, gladly taking the meager reward for their labors back to their families to hand out with a twinkle in their eyes on Christmas Eve.  People that served as my role models.

People like a man named Stanley.