Now Bucky was a rather singular fellow. He was square and not in a 60s not cool sense but in a physical sense. His fingers were as big as my arms, his arms as big as my legs and his legs – although I never saw him in shorts as he always wore those green worker pants – were probably as big as my torso. What made him square looking was the fact that he stood all of 5 foot nothing. Bucky? Right, he had no teeth. This made him very difficult to understand, nevertheless since he was always pissed off at me it didn’t matter because I could easily understand when he called me a ‘fugging aahzole’ or a ‘thoopid idyet’. First thing every day, he would assign the duties for the grounds’ crew. He begrudgingly sent me out to do my garbage thing at the main lodge while the others were given the more arduous tasks of clipping – there were no ‘weedeaters’ back then – or emptying the garbage cans throughout the resort. After break, I would go back to stabbing butts and so it wasn’t until after lunch that I had to do real work. We were allowed 2 fifteen minute breaks throughout the day so I always waited until I saw him coming to check up on me before taking my official breaks. I hated working when he was watching because he was always so quick to criticize. He would inevitably take the shovel or the hoe or the rake and show me the ‘real’ way to use the tool. He would dig or rake furiously then hand it back to me and stand there with his hands on his hips and wait for me tackle the job with the same enthusiasm he had exhibited. To avoid these embarrassing moments, when he arrived, I would let him know that I was now on break and that would really piss him off. He would mumble something unflattering then climb back into his truck and drive off. I always wondered how his feet reached the pedals. He must have stood up to drive. And smoke? He always had a cigarette in between his lips. He didn’t ever touch it once it was lit it would just hang there smoldering as he went about doing his thing. He also rolled his own and I was amazed watching him do it with one hand. So that was my supervisor and he really had a hate on for me and justifiably so. The last thing he needed was a weak disinterested summer student working in his department.
