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I met Hank and his daughter Sharon waiting for a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Newark, NJ, in the first leg of my journey to London. They came to Chicago for the weekend to celebrate the wedding of Sharon’s niece. Sharon is an account manager at an advertising firm that works with pharmaceutical companies. Most of my time in the terminal I spent chatting to Sharon about the advertising industry and her aspirations for the future. Hank was hard-of-hearing and, as a consequence, harder to engage. But when Sharon and I reached a natural break, I turned to Hank by asking him about his feelings on the wedding (and the groom). Hank works as a surveyor for an architecture firm in upstate New York. Hank still has an incredibly youthful vigor about him. I had a hard time believing that he was, as he claimed, 84 years young. He had a terrific relationship with his daughter. Here’s Hank’s story.

Where were you born?
I was born in Middleton, NY. I grew up on a dairy farm with nine siblings–two brothers and seven sisters. My brothers and I would wake up every morning before dawn to milk the cows. The three of us would milk anywhere from 30 to 40 cows at one time. We never had a break, and it was harder in those days. Now there are all these fancy devices that milk the cows for you.

Did you drink the milk right from the cow?
Sure we did. We didn’t need to pasteurize milk straight from the udder. What we didn’t drink from the pail we’d put away in an icebox right away. That way, bacteria wouldn’t fester in it. My family would sell the milk to a creamery and that’s how we made our living.

Were all your childhood friends working on their family farms also?
Yes, remember, this was right before World War II. It wasn’t unusual for a family to farm back then. I was friends with all the boys in my neck of the woods. We used to play in the fields all kinds of games, but my favorite memories are of the icehouse at our farm. My dad built a shed insulated with sawdust to store ice through the summer, to cool the milk down right after each milking. My dad filled that ice house right up to the ceiling with ice. He would cut it out from the pond with an ice saw. Me and my pals used to break in whenever we could. We’d go skating with our shoes. [Laughs] Other families would call up my dad and say, “Where’s my boy?” He’d sigh then say, “I’ll go check the icehouse.” He tried to shutter it off, but no matter what he did, we always found a way back in. [Laughs] I miss that dairy farm. We sold it years ago, as family farms were going out of business.

So, what’s keeping you busy these days? Do you still work with the land?
I’ve worked for over sixty years as a surveyor. I go out and check the land for working connections to water, sewage, electricity and cable. I work with the city government to make sure the land is compliant with regulations, and I help the architects decide where to site their designs. Today, with GPS, my job is a whole lot easier. I just push a button and I get the latitude and longitude of my position, then I graph that into my program and I’ve got the answers I need for the architects much more quickly than I ever thought possible.

It sounds like you’re keeping pace with technology.
Oh yeah, I was the first on my block to have a pager. It was this big blocky thing, maybe 7 inches long, 3 inches thick and 3 inches wide. We used to wear it on our belts like an enormous buckle. I saw a good buddy of mine down the street. He’s significantly younger than me. He couldn’t believe I had a pager. [Laughs] Remember, this is before the days of text messaging and before cell phones were ubiquitous. You needed a pager if you wanted or needed to get messages wherever you were. I was a volunteer with our local volunteer fire department for fifty years. With the pager on, I could respond to fires faster.

How did you celebrate your fiftieth year as a firefighter?
We had a big party. All the guys came. They gave me a gold watch, engraved with a message. Here it is. [He slips the watch off his hand]

Can I take a picture of this, Hank? As something to remember you by?
[Laughs] Sure. Of course you can.

What I remember most of Hank is his wonderful, lighthearted sense of humor. At one point in our conversation, we started talking about look-alikes. I told Hank about DR’s sighting of a doppelganger in Charlottesville. He told me about a couple look-alikes who appeared in his own life. His deep belly laugh was a pleasure to hear. Alas, even the warmest conversations come to an end. As the boarding call for our flight was announced over the PA system, Hank excused himself for a trip to the mens’ room. We parted ways with a handshake and a smile.  While he was away, I turned back to the conversation with Sharon. I was one of the last to board, but when I did, Sharon and Hank greeted me warmly from their seats one row in front of me. By an odd coincidence, they were seated adjacent to Heather, whom I’ll write about in my next post.