07/18/2020
The song goes —-There are 3 wooden crosses on the right side of the “door way”. — I see them every morning as I walk into work. It has taken 16 months for the drunk driver to be sentenced for this horrible accident. When I read the article about the sentencing I cried for the families of these men and the anguish and heartaches they have had to go through. At work we talked about our memories of our guys.. Joel was 21. He had been working for me about 5 months. He was bilingual and easy to talk to , work with, and train in farrowing. He was always smiling and joking around. There was always laughter at the break table when he was there. He was a single parent raising his young son.
Jose was Joel’s cousin and had been with me for 7 months. He was 25 and had a wife and child. He was more serious and a very good worker and he completed my breeding team. My favorite memory of him was hearing him sing to the sows and gilts while he was working.
Steven had been working for me since 2013. He was 39 , a husband , a father , and a grandfather. He was my assistant manager,
my breed manager, my head of maintenance. He really could do it all .. he spoke the least amount of English but early on we came to an understanding that it took both of us trying to communicate to make it work. And it did work. He learned to read the list of what had to be done that day and was ready to do it. He would often ask for me to say a word again. I would write it on my hand so he could see it, then he would write the Spanish word on his hand. He welded many things to make moving sows easier. When I was vaccinating or working on something and he wasn’t busy , he would come over and offer help. If I was struggling , he jumped right in to help me .. he is greatly missed. He had a sense of humor that sometimes took me a while to catch on with the language barrier. He used to tell me see you next week —- he had Saturday off and worked Sunday — so that was next week. Then he said see you next month — heck I never know what day it is to know that his next day at work was the 1st of the month. But I was waiting to be the first to tell him see you next year ...
I always say start time is 6 in the morning , quitting time is when we are done with everything. 95% of the time Steven would find me and ask what else there was to do—. The last day my guys worked was a wean day. We were busy weaning pigs, washing rooms and loading the rooms back up with sows. I found Jose and Joel working on fixing heat lamps and told them we were done for the day and see you tomorrow. I can still see them in my mind walking up the hall talking and laughing. They apparently found Steven and they all left for the day. I do not have a final memory like that with Steven and it bothers me to this day. Hasta Luego boys. I think of you and your families often.
