continued from page just pull ….

continued from page

just pull that report for me?”

He typed on his keyboard until the raw materials report came up on his monitor. He printed it out and handed it to me.

“I need to ask you something,” he said. “And no, it’s not about your gigantic, ugly feet. It’s about something else.”

Still irritated, I waited for his question.

“I told my mother about how you cook cornbread and cakes in Mason jars sometimes. Mama asked me to get you to write down how you do that. She wants to try it out.” “Sure,” I answered. “I’ll write it down for her.”

“Great,” he said. “You and your huge feet can leave now.” And he burst into a fit of laughter again.

I don’t know why, but that’s where my mind went this morning when I pulled up my Facebook feed and saw that Grigs had died last week at 61. There was a moment of shock, followed by sadness, followed by a few memories of our working together with a cast of other crazy, colorful characters. In the course of my three years at the floor mat factory, Grigs and I became close friends, and though we never talked about his drinking problem, he knew I knew and that I had a lot of empathy for him and his struggles. Grigs was a good, intelligent man with a problem. May he rest in peace. And may he spend eternity laughing at my unusually large feet.