My Hands Ain't Soft Anymore

        I was pondering my hands as I was working some lotion into them.  That ol’ dry skin was drinking that stuff up.  I looked at the fingers with the impacted bicycle grease and rubber.  Even the sides of my hands were rough.

I looked at my thumbnail…discolored and weird looking after accidentally ramming it on the rear chain cog of a bike.  Yeah, I know what you’re probably thinking, that DID hurt a lot. 

        “Rough hands.” 

This set off a flashback to my last year in college.  I was 20 and had a crush on a tall, healthy young woman named Katy. 

        I met Katy when I was working as a desk clerk at the hotel where, 10 years in the future, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey and a bunch of other folks would show up and film “Dirty Dancing.”  Katy was the hostler at the hotel…she took care of the horses that the guests rode around the mountaintop.

         I don’t remember how it all began, I reckon I just started calling her and shootin’ the breeze with her and before I knew it she invited me to her family’s farm just over the mountain from the university.

I drove over on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  It was one of those places with no driveway so I just drove right up to the farmhouse.  Katy came on out.

We sat on the hood of my old car and talked.

“Come on,” Katy said after a few minutes of sitting, “Let’s go for a walk.”

We walked a bit, stepping into the woods following a little trail through the trees.  We stopped by a stream.

Katy spun around and looked me right in the eyes.

         “Let me see your hands,” she said abruptly.

        Not thinking, being 20 and eager to impress, thinking that certainly this might lead to a little huggin’, kissin’ and squeezin’ I held out my hands.

        “Too soft,” she said as she ran her fingers over my hands, probing, feeling.  “You’ll never do.”  With that she turned around and started walking back to her house.

        “But,” I said, standing there, still holding out my hands.

        “You don’t believe in hard work,” she said without turning around.

        “But…”

        Katy was right.

I don’t know how she knew but she did.

I was more of a dreamer then, not a worker.  I was 20 and still had a lot to learn.  I was quite convinced I was going to hammer out The Great American Novel, make tons of money from the publishing and movie rights and get checks in the mail.

Instead I learned about hard work.

I learned it can be a drag on one hand but can be very satisfying  on the other.

I learned that when everything comes together on the job it’s a beautiful thing.

       Hey Katy, I hope you’ve had a good life.  I have. 

       And my hands ain’t soft anymore.

-30-