How I Finally Learned Independence

The blue collar job that changed my life, sending kids on errands, and facing social humiliation as a 5-year-old

Each week, a menu of sorts, around a revolving theme. This week: independence day, years too late.

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Suppertime! I promise to feed you only once a week, and never after midnight.

Ingredient List

📖 : “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Jonathan Foer // After last week’s newsletter on our memories and how terrible they are, I started reading this book which I may or may have not started before, but honestly I can’t remember. It’s about the author’s journey into the world of competitive memory athletes, and how we can all tap into that level of remembrance by employing certain memory methods and strategies. If you ever meet me in real life, feel free to test me and see if I finished this book and learned anything from it.

“How to Know if You’re Living in a Doom Loop,” by Ted Gioia // One of my most favorite reads from one of my most favorite Substackers. This falls right in line with my recent newsletter bemoaning the state of Hollywood and its recycled mediocrity. Basically, the same thing is happening across all of society in the West, just much faster than past civilizations. We’re living in a state of paralysis and safety and it’s not showing any signs of improving, especially if we use past events as a predictor of future performance.

Scholars have sometimes asked why the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen in ancient Rome or China or the medieval Arabic world—all of which had advanced conceptual knowledge and significant construction and engineering skills.

But each of these societies was, in some degree, a victim of their own past successes. At a certain point, their respect for the past began to constrain their boldness in addressing the future.

We do well to learn from these situations. In some ways, the more advanced societies are the most vulnerable—because they have the greatest tendency to repeat patterns from a triumphant past.

Postcards for Paids

I’ve been creating and sending postcards to my paid subscribers, made from vintage postcards with custom artwork courtesy of the weed packaging I find on the ground in Baltimore. On the back, a handwritten thank you note, of course. Here’s one I sent to Mary (thanks for subscribing!), featuring an all-girls school and a drag pop art character trying to save them all (or something).

If you’re still waiting on one, don’t worry, I’ll get one to you eventually.

I’m moving my weekly life recap to the dessert section, so if you’re at all interested in reading what’s been going on here in Baltimore, you can find it there (that’s for you, Mom).

And now, onto dinner service.

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Course 1

A Word of Gratitude: Baked Potatoes

Last week, I let my 8-year-old go to the grocery store by himself for the first time. An unremarkable sentence thirty years ago, a possible admission of guilt for child neglect in 2024. 

He had been asking for some time to go to the store by himself, which I wasn’t against, I just didn’t have a real need for him to go to the store for anything. This night, however, his mom was at a work function and I was cooking dinner and I really needed something easy like a couple baked potatoes in the microwave. The sole Idaho we did have in our kitchen was a true spurned spud– it had been sitting alone and abandoned for months and decided if we weren’t going to eat him, he may as well start sprouting a terrarium. I couldn’t possibly kill that homegrown art project for dinner.

“Okay, Rye, we need three potatoes– you want to go to the grocery store?”

“Yes!!”

After I double-checked the child walking-in-public laws (by the way– no laws for walking outside, so new moms– go ahead and let that pesky two-year-old roam free!), I thoroughly drilled him on the kind of potatoes we needed, which was the most important part of the mission. I showed him a lineup of Russets and fingerlings and red potatoes and told him to point to the one that we needed to bring in for questioning. Once he identified the correct perp and passed the test, we moved on to directions. 

“Tell me how to get to the store.”

“So I go straight, past Norah’s house and then it’s right there.”

“No, that’s not where it is… so let’s… eh, you know what? I know you know how to get there, but just go up the street and turn right and you’ll see it after a few blocks.”

For your own reference, the grocery store is two blocks one direction, then four blocks in another. It’s essentially a half-mile away. With five dollars in his pocket and a Sesame Street tote bag on his shoulder, I sent him on his journey towards adulthood. 

And that was the last we ever saw of the boy.

Really, though, I have a pair of high-range mountain walkie talkies that are meant for emergencies in the backcountry, and they work exceptionally well in these types of situations. Well, unless there’s a bunch of buildings in the way, but more on that later. So I gave him one and he took the other, and then he was on his way. 

Every five minutes I’d check in, he’d give me an “over and out,” and within no time he was in the store. Now, I wouldn’t say foresight is my strongest strength, but it is my strongest weakness, so I realized I never actually showed him how to pay for things with money. I just assumed the cashier wouldn’t rip him off, which is a crazy assumption at this particular grocery store.

This is a place, after all, with a “Wall of Shame” hanging by the exit, with worse-than-mugshot photos of people who have stolen from the place. Recently in the neighborhood Facebook group, a former worker said they found a random gun in the bathroom at one point. It’s hard to know if the people smoking cigs on the milk crates out front are workers or just people who found one of the polos at the thrift store across the street. Generally speaking, the cashiers look like they’ve seen their share of bar fights and bike seats and they for sure weren’t on the losing end of things. Real bruisers who don’t give no shit and take no shit. But they’re kind enough, as long as you don’t bring 16 items into the express lane.

Apparently when he paid for the potatoes, the cashier was holding a fist out at him and he had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he just kept looking at her until she said, “Do you want your change?” He got the change, no questions asked from the security guard by the exit, and walked out the store. 

Now, by this point I had actually walked up the street because I lost walkie talkie reception on account of him being inside the store and me being inside our house, so I told him we were waiting for him at the corner. He replied, “Can you guys just go back and I’ll meet you at home? I want to feel grown up.”

So that’s what we did. I mean, after I peeked the whole way down the neighborhood to make sure I saw him coming towards us.

I won’t sit here and lie to you and pretend there wasn’t a twinge of nervousness letting him go on his own through the streets of Baltimore. The grocery store lies on the exact dividing line where things get weird, Eastern Avenue being a thoroughfare for unsavory characters of all kinds. Most concerning to me were the cars, always the cars, especially at one of the uniquely Baltimorean “stop sign optional” intersections by the grocery store, where indeed he told me that people kept running the stop signs, ignoring the kid trying to cross the street. I’m sure that chicken box at Royal Farms was of utmost importance.

But I also knew that we’ve walked to school every day and crossed hundreds of streets and he knows to wait until the drivers signal to him that he can cross. And that’s what he did. All by himself. 

The potatoes that night were great, he picked out the perfect ones. Which is good, because I would’ve made him go back by himself and correct his mistake with money from his own allowance. I mean, this family isn’t going to feed itself with a yellow yam.

And for that, I am grateful.

Course 2

Appetizer: Smoked Sweet Bologna

All of my earliest memories in life come from when I lived in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Hershey (as you know from last week’s newsletter, these memories are only as true as I remember them). The place was like most in-between towns in Pennsylvania, with homes close to each other on a main street that ran through the heart of town, but drive five minutes in any direction and you’re in the middle of farm country. We moved out of there after kindergarten, but I guess it was my first real taste of independence as a kid. 

On one occasion, I remember riding my bike through the back alleys and meeting some kids at the back of the Seltzer’s Bologna factory. I don’t even remember how I knew these kids or why I met them, because I only recall having one friend at the time. I do remember that I was wearing a jean jacket and some fresh blue-framed sunglasses that were the only style available to children at the time. The $75 Pit Vipers that kids wear these days were so far removed from that reality. I was not wearing a helmet, because– I mean, it was the eighties. Helmets were for special needs kids and football players.

I showed up to this group meeting feeling like I certainly belonged. That feeling was short lived. Promptly after my arrival, the older kid in the group took one look at me and said, “What? You think you’re a cooj jay?” To this day, I have no idea what those words meant– nobody has ever thought they were a cool jay. But I knew what he meant, because I wasn’t that, whatever it was, and I wanted so bad to be that. (For dedicated readers, you may recall that I had to relive this exact same experience seven years later in middle school.) I don’t even know how I responded, though I’m sure I replied with a meager, “No.” My confidence level was not up to par, I had not yet mastered the art of wit and wordplay, and I was wearing a pair of plastic sunglasses that probably came free inside of a box of Frosted Flakes.

That was my first real taste of independence and it was dashed by some kid whose name was probably Billy, who also lived in Palmyra, whose clothes probably smelled like smoked bologna just like mine. He was the uncoolest of jays, just like me.

I would like to know what happened to that kid. If his cool jay trajectory kept going up and to the right, or if he’s still living in that small town, listening to Springsteen talk about a small town, while snacking on a piece of sweet meat from the factory down the street in that same small town. 

Honestly– it sounds like a pretty cool life. So good for him.

Course 3

The Main: Dill Pickles

Outside of my intense love of the Fourth of July, I’ve always had a weird relationship with independence. On one hand, I was pretty much allowed to roam free in the parks and fields around my house where I grew up. I could ride my bike to my grandma’s house a couple miles away and over a four-lane highway before I was a teenager. A woman was sexually assaulted in the park across from our house and the next day we were playing there by ourselves. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice… right?

On the other hand, I was fiercely dependent on my parents or others to do so stuff for me, to figure things out so I didn’t have to. To solve my problems whenever they arose. I was very shy as a kid– I didn’t like talking to people or asking for things or dealing with any problems. I’d just ask my mom to do it for me and she would. 

This went on for most of my life, because I never I had to leave my comfort zone. My mom is the most selfless and caring person I ever met, who would probably admit that she stretches herself too far to help others. Her love for others runs so deep that she would do anything for anyone, at any time, especially her children. My dad is much the same– have a flat tire, need some extra cash, want to waterproof your entire basement then hang drywall and paint everything and while you’re at it can you mow the entire property? He’s your guy. I love them for this– they were always there for me and my siblings, and still are.

As humans, we are predisposed to take the path of least resistance. After all, flicking a Bic lighter is much easier than waiting for lightning to split a tree or spending hours on end rubbing some sticks together to produce a feeble flame. Plucking a cut of ribeye off the shelf at the supermarket is preferable to slinking through tall grass for prey. I’m trying to watch baseball in my free time, not become tick food. 

So as I got older, I realize that instead of overcoming my problems, I could just depend on my parents to do the hard work: call off work for me, do my taxes, figure out my student loans, find me a car, change the oil in that car, give me a place to stay and food for free until I decided it was time to get out of there. 

Nowadays, all this is probably pretty normal stuff– I read last week that 25% of Gen Z applicants for a job had their parents come with them to a job interview. Before reading that, I had thought all the complaints about Gen Z were overblown– every generation has its problems and every older generation will complain about them. Now, I’m not so sure. 

Like me, that generation will never have to grow up. Eventually, my Peter Pan phase ended– kind of. I did move out of the house, I did start to pay my own bills, but I did not know how to rely on myself to figure out real problems. 

Until I became a water meter technician. 

When I was in the band, money was hard to come by. I waited tables for most of this time, somehow surviving on $40 a night in tips working at a hotel restaurant. I never went on food stamps, but the thought crossed my mind– I was making less than $15,000 a year, after all. But I figured I had a college degree and this is the bed I made and laid in, I wasn’t going to take advantage of a system that wasn’t built for me. So I scraped up money any way I could. 

At the time, my best friend Andy had just taken a job with a company in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, a place that was most notable for dropping a giant pickle on New Year’s Eve. The company was a small family contracting business that specialized in repairing and replacing water meters for the larger water company in the area– everything from large, industrial meters to the typical household meter that sits inside or outside of your home at this moment. 

In the earliest days of water meters, the numbers would tick over as the water flowed in and someone would come into your house every few months, record the number and charge you for usage. Then in the nineties, wired sensors were attached to meters, so the water company could just place a device on the sensor that was now on the outside of your house, making it easier to read. Again, path of least resistance. 

However, new technologies require new upgrades, so the newest water meters were now being wired up with remote sensors with RFID. In this way, a technician could simply drive around the neighborhood with a remote reading device and pick up all the readings on a computer screen, never having to leave the truck. This is a monumental time saver, of course. But to implement that new technology, every water meter had to get hooked up with new devices. And every house has their own water meter. Next time you drive through a neighborhood, just imagine going to every, single, house, and hooking up a new sensor or replacing an old water meter. Because that’s what I had to do. 

It all sounds pretty straightforward, but this was the second hardest job I ever had (the other was cleaning and detailing boats, which I’ll write about some other time). Of course, I started this job at the very beginning of winter. Of course, most of the water meters were in pits outside in people’s yards. Of course, even if they weren’t, I had to wire the external sensors from inside someone’s basement and attach them to the outside of their house. Of course, I had zero experience in plumbing, wiring, drilling, or problem solving.

The first days were spent training with a guy named Ed, who spent as much time looking at girls in the rearview and side mirrors as he did changing water meters. On one occasion, he saw a girl walking down the sidewalk, commented on her appearance, followed her walk in the view of his side mirror, then said, “Oh wait, that’s a guy.” You get my point.

Despite his playing into the stereotype of every blue collar worker ever, he was a magician at fixing and replacing water meters. It’s always incredible to see someone so good at a craft that people never think about existing, but that is so critical to our daily lives. I– on the other hand– was a bumbling fool. 

For the first few weeks, I came home each day covered in dirt and mud, hands laced up and down with tiny cuts from the razor-sharp threads on the male ends of the the water meters, fingers poked with the end of the wires that I had to strip and bend and hook up while I was hunched over in someone’s front yard. Sometimes in the 45-degree pouring rain, sometimes in six inches of snow. 

But eventually I got better at the initial task, which is always fascinating to me. My hands and mind learned the task, intuitively dodging the threads and avoiding nicks and cuts until I could do it quickly and without injury. 

Within a week, I was kicked out of the nest, sent around the Harrisburg area in my own Geo Prizm with a company magnet slapped on the side. Each morning, I’d drive to the shop and load up the trunk with water meters, water meter caps, fiber optic cable, and new readers. I’d get my work list for the day and head out into the wilderness.

I was on my own. Which was a problem, because I had never been independent.

Things went smoothly when the work was straightforward– here’s a meter that needs a new sensor, take the three screws off, wire it up, run a magnet over the box to get it running, and you’re done. Fifteen dollars in fifteen minutes.

The thing is, working with old plumbing and dated water meters and weird buildings and structures isn’t straightforward. Just finding the water meter can be a real search and rescue procedure. Oftentimes they’re in houses, in basements, inside walls, behind bookcases or televisions or any other number of difficult locations. Sometimes they’re in houses with nothing inside them except for 70 different large, exotic parrots in cages lining every floor of the place (a thing I actually encountered). Since the meters are often inside, the RFID reader can’t always reach so you have to actually run wire in ceilings, down walls, and through the foundation, which oftentimes requires drilling with long masonry bit. All of this required a high degree of in-the-moment problem solving, and I couldn’t call my mom.

So I just called my only co-worker, my best friend Andy. 

It was my first real problem, a house that needed to run wire outside from the water meter inside. I had never done this on my own, and I couldn’t see how it was possible and didn’t know how to figure it out. Instead of just running the problem through my head, my immediate default was to cry for help. Andy, of course, had to drop everything on his current route and drive twenty minutes out of his way to help me, which meant he was losing money. I had to convince the customer that I knew what I was doing, and to let me stay in their basement for an hour. Eventually, Andy made it over and showed me the route through the ceiling, using a hanger for guidance, then how to drill a hole, run the wire out, anchor the base plate to the wall, and connect everything.

It was all pretty easy, actually. I knew how to do all these things. If I had just used my mind, trusted myself, and believed in my independence, I could do it. What I could not do is call someone every time I ran into a problem. If I were to keep this job, which– trust me, I desperately needed– I’d have to learn how to deal with problems myself.

And that’s exactly what I did. From then on, I relied on myself to figure everything out. Things broke, I fixed them. Customers weren’t home, I moved on. Missing a piece, I improvised. I came more prepared for things, in case of an emergency. I worked there until work ran out on the contract, installing hundreds of meters and replacing probably a thousand more devices. I only needed to call for help one other time, and that was because only Ed had a curb key to turn the water off that ran under the street.

It was one of the hardest jobs I ever had– long hours, lots of driving, working in 20-degree temperatures while trying to thread wires with bare fingertips. It paid okay, but not great once I took into account gas and the wear and tear on my car. Nevertheless, I think about that job all the time– it wasn’t what I went to school for, it wasn’t what I was meant to do, it was hard and the days were long. While working there, I only considered it a stop-gap to make it through to the next stage in life, wondering if I’d ever get out of this cycle of trying to find money doing whatever job I could.

What I didn’t realize at the moment, but would recognize later, was that it was the most valuable job I ever had. In terms of life experience and confidence gained, it was the greatest return on investment. It taught me to be independent and problem solve and figure things out when nobody else was there to do it for me. It truly changed my life.

Would I want to go back and do it again? Probably not. I got what I needed out of it. 

A couple months ago on our walk to school, Rye was running onto the sidewalk and landed directly on top of a water meter cap. It wasn’t properly screwed on, so his foot went straight through it, scraping his whole leg and soaking his shoe since this particular pit was filled with water. Unfortunately he didn’t break anything, so we couldn’t sue the city or the water company. I told him to try a little harder next time. 

Anyway, it was shoddy work and it was a plastic lid, clearly a company trying to cut corners. Probably some fly by night operation that hires inexperienced touring musicians and pays them on a per-meter basis. The guy that replaced the meter probably forgot his hex key, didn’t want to call a co-worker, and left the lid just sitting on top of the hole. He probably quit that day and called his mom to get her to schedule another interview for him.

Gen Z, man. Flailing in the seas of dependency.

Garbage water meter and garbage meter pit

Course 4

Dessert: A Repast of the Past Week

It was another hot week here in Baltimore, made more evident by my perpetual procrastination with running. I had a track workout on Thursday in the blazing sun with high humidity and it was the first time this summer I was done with summer. I actually couldn’t stop thinking about winter running and base layers and tights. I downed four LMNT mixes that day until I felt better.

Friday was Jonas’s 6th birthday, so apparently time keeps moving on against all my wishes. He told us when he came downstairs in the morning that he was just crying in his room because he was so happy. What I wouldn’t give to have something that unrefined again, just the singular essence of joy. After camp that day, we went to Fells Point and bought him a fishing rod from Tochterman’s, the greatest tackle shop on the planet, and also grabbed a couple packs of Pokémon cards from the local game store. I also had the worst paloma of my life, which was for some reason all mezcal, some aperol, and a splash of grapefruit seltzer. That one’s on me, I should’ve known better.

Saturday was Jonas’s birthday party and it went surprisingly well, despite the heat. A handful of friends came over and all the kids played with water guns and water balloons and more water things in the alley behind our house. I had attempted to power wash the alley this week, but made it only about twenty feet. The rest was mostly dirt and mud. Good enough. Had a great time talking with friends for a few hours while the kids played.

And now, I have to pack for the Olympic Games. I’ll be heading to Paris on Tuesday with ASICS and Believe in the Run, a true dream come true. Actually, it’s not. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine myself there, for work, with the opportunity to witness and talk to some of the most incredible athletes in the world. I’m both super excited and super nervous and consider myself incredibly lucky to be at one of the greatest events on earth (outside of an Orioles World Series).

Some other things I wrote and/or edited this week:

• Brooks Hyperion 2 (shoe review for Believe in the Run)

• Hoka Mach X 2 (shoe review for Believe in the Run)

• Mount to Coast S1 (shoe review for Believe in the Run)

I also contribute to The Drop, a weekly email from Believe in the Run, where I round-up running news and stories in a generally sarcastic (and sometimes heartfelt) manner. You can subscribe here.

I’m also the co-host of The Drop running podcast, one of the top running podcasts in the country, where we mostly talk about things other than running that thousands of people seem to find entertaining. You can listen to this week’s episode here.

END OF MENU

Thank you for dining with me this evening, I hope the service was acceptable. Tips (whether monetary or recommendations to others) are appreciated, but not expected.

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