Tag Archives: intern

Dining with Grant…

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I found out this week that one of my oldest friends was going to be in the area over the weekend. Of course I’m using “in the area” here in the broadest possible sense of the word to mean somewhere within a three hour radius. There are precious few things that might tempt me out of the house, but the chance to nosh on steaks, have a few cold beverages, and shoot the shit telling stories about the olden days is just too good an opportunity to pass up.

From that long ago day – almost fourteen years past now – when we met as interns at a Shoney’s in Petersburg, Virginia to a few golden years in the District to the misadventure that was life in west Tennessee to our continued years in service to the great green machine there’s plenty of ground to cover. He’s one of the very few people from back there at the dawn of time who I’ve managed to stay in contact with. Even more important, he’s one of the few living human beings who I’ve learned to trust implicitly.

When we last parted company, I remarked that I always counted myself fortunate to play the role of Sherman to his Grant. I still do… and just now I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than sit down and rehash our war stories. Think of it as a mid-career assessment of just what the hell we’re doing and the long strange road that got us here. It’s a hell of a long way from where the story started.

Twelve…

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Twelve years ago this morning, I was a 24 year old former teacher who had just resigned in disgust from what would have inevitably been a soul crushing career touching America’s future. It was basically a choice of self-preservation more than anything else. I’d interviewed for a new job over the phone, filled out a staggering amount of paperwork, and moved what few household goods I had accumulated since graduating college 129 miles south to embark on a new career. Early that long ago morning I met 30-odd strangers at a Shoney’s in Petersburg, Virginia waiting for an unknown future.

We were met with boxes of additional paperwork and a day’s worth of in processing. We raised our right hands and said the words and poof, we were the most endangered of all Uncle’s animals – we were federal interns. Like everything else in the government, the word “intern” means something completely different than it means out in the world. For us, it meant full salary and benefits and two guaranteed promotions if we managed not to get fired during our probationary employment period.

Since then, it’s been off to the races. Some of it good, some of it bad, but very rarely has it ever been dull for more than a few days at a time. I’ve been equal parts ambitious, discontent, proud, and horrified of the career that day launched. Uncle has given me the chance to go places and see things I never would have done or seen of my own accord. Alternately he’s driven me to drink and to ponder the rules governing what makes a homicide “justifiable.”

With a little bit of rounding, it’s now 12 down and 21 to go – or a little more than a third of a career now in the books. That figure is alternately depressing and incredibly hard to believe… or at least it is until my back starts hurting, there’s a throbbing in my knee, or my shoulder slides out of joint. Then I can tell exactly where those years went. It should be interesting to see what kind of mess I can make of the next twelve.