Last Friday while working in a theatrical shop I was grabbing a 2X4 from a precariously stacked pallet as a smell wafted past. It was a slight kind of smell of an industrial bakery, you know like white bread, baking. I’m sure it was just a combination of the primed pine and cedar or something or other, but it’s funny how a smell or image, maybe something one says can take you away to another place and time.

Round 1988 or so I started working at a hospital in Minneapolis Minnesota. The Lutheran’s started Fairview Deaconess as a college of nursing in 1888. Through time it was transitioned into a facility for treatment of adolescent chemical abuse, psychological disorders and to provide community medical services. I made the transition from cooking in restaurants to working the night shift at Fairview for a couple of reasons. Previously cooking in a family owned restaurant with an over bearing mother of one of the owners, the mom was also an owner, while her sons marriage, him and his wife also owners, get it, falls apart is a recipe which makes everyone uncomfortable in an already high stress job, One. Two, I wanted to go back to school so I figured what better way than working the night shift, insuring troubled children of the world get a good nights sleep.

11pm to 7:30am, I recently said something about people who move to Alaska, they don’t move there for the conversation, the same could be said about one who works the night shift. I am not saying the people I worked with were boring yet, the job requires watching an empty hall for eight hours and staying awake, that’s a big block of time to occupy your mind with something engaging. Exposure to a group of people who either purposely or incidentally avoided interaction with mainstream society had a bit of influence on my still developing 23 year old outlook on the world.

With all great intentions I enrolled for a full load at Minneapolis Community College, sadly I for one reason or other missed the first day of classes and never really followed through, whoops. Hence, beginning my career as a treatment worker. Eventually, I switched into the world of humans, evenings 3pm-11:30 and interacting with that precious/precocious wonder of the adolescent mind after a year or two I moved to what I call the executive shift 7a-3:30p. Called so because the suits and bosses were around and watching. Eventually I got back to the night shift and started school back at the old MCC. Having to wrangle the paper work to get my earlier foray changed from F’s to just being a drop out. Pre-nursing Composition, Bio, Psych until my biology teacher, don’t remember his name awesome dude though, challenged me to look at pursuing a PhD in the sciences.

I applied to art school the next spring. Four years later planning my graduation, future marriage and starting grad school I whiled away a night shift counting names in a census book, a book that lists names and info for our adolescent clients. Roundabouts 1500 names that I recognized working with and paying attention to. My time at Riverside Medical Center was a minor five years. Small change compared to the staff that have dedicated their lives helping kids to get their shit straight while also operating in the bureaucratic world of hospitals, health insurance and public funding.