Mr. Green left our workplace mad two weeks ago; I have no idea for how long.
It all started with a confrontation he had with our log scaler that day. It was Friday, and the loader operator was out, so we’d asked a kid from the maintenance department to fill in. But Green didn’t know this, and he asked the guy to help him cut a tree down. When logs started coming in that afternoon, there was no operator to be found, and the trucks lined up for what looked like a mile while we figured out where the operator was.
When the dust settled, the log scaler told Green: “Next time, ask us before you take our operator away!”
Green was noticeably discomfited. He had picked up a hydraulic motor for us the week before, he said, and he figured we were just returning the favor.
“The next time, I think I’ll do as I please,” he mumbled.
The shakeup happened in such a way that all departures from habit or routine occur: initially with shock to those of us watching, followed by concern, and later by hurt confusion.
Green walked out, got in his pickup truck, and left the log yard, twin plumes of roiling dust rising in the air behind him.
For days I didn’t hear from him. I called but he wouldn’t answer. Folks around the office would ask, but I didn’t know what to say. “He does this sometimes,” I found myself responding more often than not. In truth, I didn’t know what had happened, and not knowing was making me uneasy.
Yesterday, I stopped by his house.
To my surprise, he was quite cheery. He got out of his truck dressed in overalls, with his old black fedora that I hadn’t seen in some time, and he was smiling, though there was a seriousness to him, a narrowing of his eyes, that I wasn’t used to.
“Hello,” he said confidently.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked.
“Oh here and there,” he said. “I’ve actually just got back from the bank, trying to take care of some things, you know.”
When I asked him when he was coming back to the office, he was dismissive.
“I might not ever be back,” he said with a wave of his hand.
When I asked him why, he said that a man needed to run with people of his own age, and that, in his estimation, we were too young a crowd for him.
“I don’t get anything done over there,” he said with sincerity. When I asked what he meant, he leaned forward and whispered, “Between you and me, we’re headed for hard times.”
When asked again what he meant, he replied without hesitation. According to Green, what was going on in the country, particularly with tariffs, was something of the substance of the end times.
He’d been to the bank to take some money out, he said, and he was going to the co-op later to get some seeds.
“I’m going to plant a potato patch,” said Green. “We all need to be ready. I’ve known it for some time, and now it’s here. It’s what caused me to be so short the other day. I know it now. So, in a way, what happened was for the best because it woke me out of my slumber. You need to wake up, too. We all do.”
When I left, he was just as focused and, dare I say, gleeful as he was at the beginning. It was as though a day had come that had been predicted years ago and that he was glad to be prepared for.
I thought about this on the way back to the mill. As far as our business goes – which is chiefly domestic – things seem to be turning up. Poplar prices are rising, and there is even positive talk about red oak. But the drop in the stock market cannot be ignored. To me, the truth is this: we are in uncharted waters. Not since William McKinley have we had a pro-tariff government, so, at least as far as I’m concerned, anyone saying they know precisely what is going to happen is only making conjecture.
However, I know this: our debt is over $36 trillion, and, going by last year’s numbers, growing at the rate of nearly $2.5 trillion a year. And, as far as I can tell, there is no other real option on the table than the one the current administration has to handle this. In the end, it will either work or not, and if it doesn’t, the president will be in big trouble politically. Hence, we can only wait and see.
As I pulled up to the office, I started to turn around and to tell this to Green.
“I’m worried about it, too,” I was going to say. “But it’s one of the strengths of democracy that, if you don’t like what’s happening, you can vote them out and someone else in.”
But I didn’t do this. I was afraid that trying to counter him would only alienate him further, and I didn’t want this, because I wanted him to come back. Tariff or no tariff, deficit or not: I missed my friend.
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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