Here’s what I want you to understand.
Let’s see if I can
make it clear.
On a busy thoroughfare
headed downhill the wrong way
in traffic a city dump truck,
one of the big ones,
broke down.
Loaded with dirt and brush,
equipped with a hydraulic boom
and a claw big enough to pick up
massive loads like mattresses
and refrigerators and tree trunks.
Going nowhere and a tow truck
backed up to it both trucks back to back
and the rating on the tow derrick
in big letters said 50 Tons.
A man, this is what I want you to understand,
a man in the tow truck jumped down
to the ground and hooked up the dump truck
and elevated the dual axles
of the dump truck and all eight tires
off the roadway and then
Crawled underneath the dump truck
hanging there in air to secure chains
and hooks flat on his back on the pavement
facing up into death more cruel
than anything you or I could imagine
if anything went wrong.
That man, not the equipment, not the ratings,
not the sophistication of the controls,
that man and men like him make the world
go round and when it breaks down
make it go round and around
again and again.
So when the driver of that tow truck
climbed back into his cab and drove away
and all the ensuing traffic on that
thoroughfare went on its way unassuming
and ignorant of his effort, I resolved
to write this so you’d know.
The reason you and I have it so easy
is because for some men
it isn’t easy at all.
ƒ