October Skies

What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?

I sat on the back stoop with my steaming cup of coffee, the first one awake. It was a chilly morning, the fall colors were at their peak, and the skies of upstate New York that day were a deep indigo. 

As I sipped my coffee, I heard a faint sound and looked up. High above… at least a mile… a flock of geese were heading south in their characteristic V formation. As I watched, the lead bird dropped out of position and another took its place. The head of the V, breaking the air resistance, is the most taxing spot and they take turns. 

As the flock and their honking faded to the south, it struck me that my friend was also winging his way out of my day-to-day life.

I met Ted early in my career at IBM. He was from Endicott, NY, where they average one sunny day a week. Day after day of gray skies in a fading industrial town with polluted groundwater and a surplus of tired old houses. 

His first job was at Kodak, in Rochester, NY. As bad as it was in Endicott, Rochester was one circle lower in Dante’s Inferno. The photographic film they manufactured was very sensitive to exposure so everything was bathed in dim red light.

In winter, he drove to work in the dark. He worked all day in a submarine-esque environment; steel catwalks and ladders, bubbling tanks of reagents, the stink of chemicals, people shouting above the noise in the red light. 

After work, his car was usually covered with several inches of snow, so before driving home—in the dark—he had to first wearily scrape ice off his windshield and back window.

After two years, he’d had enough. He applied for a job at IBM in Boca Raton, interviewed and was accepted. He put in his two weeks’ notice and liberally covered his desk with pamphlets and brochures about Florida for the benefit of his envious co-workers.

By comparison, Boca Raton, FL was not only out of the Inferno; he had been borne aloft by angels to the realm of sunshine, waving palm trees and sparkling Gulf Stream waters. 

We hit it off and I became his de facto ambassador to South Florida; his open-mouthed expressions of astonishment were comical. 

He discovered diving, became certified, and spent his Saturdays exploring the reefs. His girlfriend’s dad had a thirty-five foot boat and Sunday afternoons were spent a mile offshore, fishing for marlin and wahoo. Afterwards, a relaxing dip in the pool and a few cold ones from the tiki bar were in order.

He and his girlfriend got married the same year as Sue and I, and we were anticipating a long and enjoyable friendship between the four of us. 

But it was not to be.

After about two years, I noticed a change. Ted became restless, irritable. He didn’t feel challenged by his work in Boca Raton, which was primarily an assembly plant for PCs. He wanted to sink his teeth into something meatier.

About a month later, he dropped his bombshell. We were in the cafeteria and he waited until we were almost done.

“Hey,” he said uncomfortably. “I just wanted to let you know. I’m transferring to Poughkeepsie, NY.”

I waited for the laugh, the I’m-just-kidding. When it didn’t come, I stared. I had no words.

“They’re building an on-site industrial treatment plant,” he said. “You know, cleaning up the effluent they discharge into the Hudson River. I’m gonna be working on that.”

After I regained my composure, I stumbled over my words. Remember Kodak? Ice and snow? What about the four of us, we were gonna build houses next to each other…?

No amount of browbeating or entreating would sway him and within three months, a moving van carried him and Annie 1,317 miles north to their new home. Sue and I went along to help and the morning after the move was the morning of the coffee and the geese. I was crestfallen as we flew home.

The indigo skies of that October morning were soon replaced by ominous storm clouds heading south from Canada. They experienced a very heavy early snowfall and with the leaves still on the trees, the snow stuck. Branches snapped like toothpicks under the weight. They were without power for weeks.

The Inferno reappeared. Ted left home in the dark and arrived at the plant under low, gray stratus clouds day after day. Twelve-hour workdays were the norm. He drove the 30 miles home on icy roads bracketed by dirty slush. His town had one restaurant.

The tone of his emails changed. He was initially enthused; he got his chemical engineering books out of storage and pored over blueprints and calculations. He sent me a few snapshots of himself and the team, all wearing coats and hard hats, surrounded by a jungle of tanks, piping, and snow. “Meat and potatoes engineering,” they proudly called it, an esprit de corps dedicated to clean wastewater.

But then he started asking about Boca. How was the weather? The beach? Had I gone diving recently? How were the bars in Fort Lauderdale doing?

Within six months, full-blown buyer’s remorse set in. I printed his emails and found one the other day in a box of cards and letters. “Well,” it started. “It’s a sultry 12 degrees here this am in beautiful Poughkeepsie…”

I began to worry; the tone of his letters grew increasingly bleak. I thought about Jimmy Buffett’s song “Boat Drinks,” a guy going nuts during winter:

This morning
I shot six holes in my freezer
I think I got cabin fever
Somebody sound the alarm.

Some people thrive in that kind of environment. Ted did not. After three years, he’d had enough and wrangled a transfer to IBM’s facility in Raleigh, NC. He endured despite considerable pushback, but was resolute: Goodbye, meat and potatoes engineering; hello mountains, beaches and mild winters.

Sue and I moved to Raleigh a few years later and we were all happily reunited.

I often think back to the morning with the coffee and the geese. I love that time of year; October is my favorite. The earth is preparing for its annual rest. Birds fly south, ponds and lakes have their biannual turnover, trees and animals prepare to hibernate. Life slows down.

There’s a rom-com starring a young Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan titled “Joe vs the Volcano.” It’s a slapstick comedy about a guy who works in a stifling Kodak-like environment. Through a series of misadventures, they end up floating on a makeshift raft of suitcases in the South Pacific at night. Ryan looks up at the vault of stars overhead; what she says next is why I remember this forgettable movie.

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep,” she says. “Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”

I think that’s true. So many of us sleepwalk through life, unwilling or uncertain about making change. The years go by, the cement hardens and eventually the sleep becomes permanent.

And the only evidence we were ever here is a slab with our name, two dates, and a dash.

I’m glad my friend awoke in time.

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