A Man from the Past: Two Flags and an Attic Full of Stories
A Man from the Past: Two Flags and an Attic Full of Stories
It's been a while since my last post. Not because nothing has happened, but perhaps because too much has happened.
Life has a funny way of keeping us busy collecting stories without giving us enough time to tell them.
Today is Sunday. I'm working in my garage, building a wooden archway for my wife's garden. Nothing particularly complicated, but like most of my projects, it's taking longer than I expected.
I took a break, and my wife treated me to a breakfast fit for a king. So here I am, finishing my milk, thinking about yesterday, today, and all the things that have happened between them.
And somewhere in the middle of those thoughts, I found a story.
The Artist and the Redneck
I've been working at an oil manufacturing plant in Tampa for a little over two months now.
It's an enormous facility, with storage tanks, pipes, pumps, machinery, and seemingly endless things that need cleaning, repairing, or painting.
My working partner is a fellow named Corey.
He's four years older than me and has been with the company for thirteen years.
Corey is what you might call a genuine American redneck. Rough appearance, beard, old baseball cap, and a personality that probably wouldn't fit comfortably into a corporate office.
But appearances can be deceiving.
He's one of those people who simply cannot sit still. While others might try to avoid finding more work, Corey goes looking for something that needs fixing.
And after thirteen years, he knows just about everything around the plant.
People come to him with problems before they even approach management.
He cares about the place.
For some reason, we get along very well.
I'm an immigrant from Russia who once worked restoring historical palaces, museums, and churches in St. Petersburg.
He's an American who has spent years keeping an industrial plant running.
Not exactly the most obvious combination.
But we share something important: neither of us particularly enjoys standing around doing nothing.
He teaches me the practical side of the plant, and I do my best to keep up.
He's also been kind enough to give me rides partway home, cutting my bicycle commute from an hour and a half to about thirty-five minutes.
Sometimes friendship doesn't require many words.
Just a ride home.
Two Flags
Yesterday was Saturday, and we were working again.
Among other things, I had an opportunity to take some aerial photographs of the plant with my drone.
I'm a licensed drone pilot, and photography is one of my many interests.
In front of the main office stands a flagpole with two flags: the American flag above and the Amalie Oil flag below.
I wanted to capture both flags fully extended in the wind.
Simple, right?
Not quite.
Apparently, the two flags had different opinions about which direction the wind was blowing.
One would open beautifully while the other folded around the pole. Then the second would cooperate while the first decided to take a break.
It took patience, timing, and a little luck to capture the moment when both flags were flying properly.
Afterward, I corrected the colors and showed the photographs to Corey.
He liked them.
"Let's show Harry," he suggested.
Harry is one of the owners of the company.
So off we went.
We found him in his office, watching a movie.
At first, he didn't seem to understand why two maintenance workers had interrupted his Saturday to show him pictures of flags.
And frankly, I could understand his confusion.
After all, he probably sees those flags every day!
But as we explained what went into capturing the photograph, the conversation developed.
He remembered difficulties the company had experienced bringing a large mobile crane onto the property because of the nearby airport.
Then he asked whether I could shoot videos as well.
It turns out the company is considering a promotional video showing the plant in operation, with people and machinery working.
We talked about possibilities, safety, and how a series of short, carefully planned shots could be combined into a complete production.
Nothing has been decided yet.
But I found it interesting how a photograph of two flags turned into a conversation about something entirely different.
And that's when another thought came to me.
The Attic
Where do stories come from?
I've been thinking about this lately.
I imagine that somewhere inside our minds, we all have an attic.
It's filled with things we've collected throughout our lives.
Old memories, books we've read, people we've met, conversations we've overheard, places we've visited.
Most of those things just sit there, gathering dust.
But every once in a while, something happens in the present that sends us climbing back into that attic.
We open an old box, pull something out, and suddenly see it differently.
Take Corey and me, for example.
Two maintenance workers painting storage tanks.
Nothing unusual about that.
But somewhere in my attic, there's an old book about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
And suddenly I imagine Corey riding a horse, wearing his Amalie Oil cap and carrying an extension ladder instead of a lance.
And myself riding alongside him, carrying a journal and a feather pen, recording our adventures.
We even made some illustrations of it!
And I have to admit, the resemblance is rather amusing.
But here's the interesting part.
The story wasn't hiding in the old book.
And it wasn't hiding at the oil plant.
It appeared when something from yesterday met something from today.
Maybe that's how imagination works.
We collect pieces of the world, sometimes without knowing why, and then one day discover that two completely unrelated pieces fit together.
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
I've spent a good portion of my life working with my hands.
Stone restoration, sculpture, woodworking, maintenance, painting.
And lately I've been spending more time writing stories.
At first, those activities might seem unrelated.
But perhaps they're not so different.
When I worked with stone, I tried to find the sculpture hiding inside it.
When I work with wood, I follow the grain and discover what the material will allow me to create.
And when I write, I search through memories, observations, and imagination, looking for something that wants to become a story.
Recently, I came up with a thought:
"Art is a negotiation between what you want and what you can."
I'm beginning to think storytelling is much the same.
We start with an idea, but the story doesn't always go where we intended.
Sometimes the characters surprise us.
Sometimes a memory changes the direction.
And sometimes two flags refusing to cooperate with the wind lead us somewhere entirely unexpected.
Which brings me back to today.
My breakfast is finished.
The wooden archway is waiting in the garage.
And my son Daniel is probably wondering when I'll finally surrender the computer so he can play Roblox.
Life continues.
More memories for the attic.
More stories waiting to be discovered.
And perhaps that's why I've decided to call my storytelling project:
"I'm Chasing the Story."
Because I don't always know where the story is going.
Sometimes it's hidden in yesterday.
Sometimes it's waiting somewhere in tomorrow.
And sometimes it's sitting right beside me in an old pickup truck, wearing a baseball cap and complaining that there's still work to do.
See you down the road!
— A Man from the Past
