Students, Meet Grouchy People on Their End of the Brick Wall!

Note: The brick patio in the picture is one of our "rare" brick jobs in the last decade. It was on our daughter Rachel's house. It's a little different from laying on a wall with two bricklayers, but you get the idea. Btw, it was quite a job in the heat and down on your hands and knees for, let's see, maybe 40 hours. :)

“Coach, I like that story,” said one of the young gentlemen sitting in the back row. I didn’t fully fall for the compliment. Lavish compliments are often after something else, so some say. Of course, none of those students were in my class. My student scholars were immune to such knavery, as Mr. Shakespeare says.

“Glad to hear that, J.C.,” I replied, then, without hesitation, said, “Now, I’d like for you all to write me a story about somebody you’ve encountered that is pure-tee hard to get along with.”

Oh my, how the moans and groans abounded, some even accompanied by real tears. Finally, a trustworthy young lady on the honored roll front row broke up the pity party.

“Coach, maybe if you told just one more story while we’re all thinking about it, we’d be ready to write then.”

There's always a class spokesman, you know, and it is always one who can provide a post-speech million-dollar innocent smile to add persuasion to any argument.

Within a minute, of course, I had caved, even though—just for you and me to know, not my students—I already had a story in mind, just needed the invitation. That day, this class was about to be introduced to “The Grouchy Man on the Other End of the Brick Wall.”

Satisfied and victorious, they settled in to a high-school version of Storytime, just without the chocolate milk and soda crackers, and the pillow.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here's some breakin' news for you,” I said, "some people are just flat hard to get along with. They seem to make a livin’ being contrary, difficult, smug, ridiculous, or any number of other adjectives we could conjure up.

“So, what do you do when you run across these people?” I asked but didn’t wait for an answer, “Friends and Romans, what you do is this! When people make walking a mile with them tough, volunteer to go the second mile.”

I had to deviate a moment to make sure everyone understood what the "second mile" was, then confessed that it was not that I’d been setting the world on fire with my own second-mile walk. It’s just that I had learned at least try it as best I could.

The story goes that back in my young, bricklaying days, I worked once with a big, long-haired fella with a bad attitude. He was grouchy from the moment he got out of his roughed-up, rusty pickup truck and climbed onto the scaffold in the morning until he packed his tools and climbed down to go home.

But I still made it a point to be as nice to him as I could and to greet him with a hearty “Good morning!” every day. Of course, at the age of twenty, part of that kindness was due to a desire for self-preservation.

I was more likely to get a growl or a groan back in return than a “Good morning,” and that early-morning non-conversation was the most conversation we had all day long. But there’s something else: He made it a point to lay his half of the wall all day long, not going an inch further. Talk about not walking the second mile. He wouldn’t walk the second inch. He was a lesson waiting to happen, something for which I am now thankful even if I wasn’t back in 1976.

You need to know about bricklayers. On a long wall, two bricklayers would normally start at either end and lay bricks until they meet in the middle. This fella, for the record, was about the last guy you’d want to have to meet in the middle, or anywhere else. All day long, he would beat me to the middle and then turn around and go back to his end and clean his trowel or joint up his work until I caught up. That put me trying to play catch-up all day long. It was frustrating.

It took most of the day, but eventually I beat him to the middle of the wall. He got hung up with something that stalled him. I could hear him mumbling and grumbling, utilizing a part of the vocabulary I had rarely heard. I never looked up because this was my opportunity to catch up and also to give a little payback. “Ah, I’m goin’ to show him,” I thought.

I came to the middle of the wall, glanced up, and, sure enough, my grouchy friend was ten feet from me, huffing and puffing and fuming as he tried to catch up. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, scanning my attentive crowd, “I had come to the moment of truth. Should I stop at the halfway point as he had done all day, or …”

I hesitated.

“ … or should I be the bigger man and keep laying until I met him on his end of the wall.”

I polled the class, and almost every hand to a man voted to leave the grouchy fella with the severe attitude problem and an added aversion to bathing regularly hanging out to dry.

“Well,” I said, “I didn’t. Even though I knew what was gonna happen, I kept layin’ brick until I met my grouchy friend two-thirds of the way down the wall. I knew I was going to end up havin’ to lay the ‘closure,' again.”

I had to explain the “closure.” It is that one brick nobody wants to lay. It’s the last brick to be laid when the two bricklayers meet in the middle of the wall. Having to lay that brick is one of the big disadvantages of being courteous and going the second mile to meet your fella bricklayer. It’s the slowest brick to lay, and–if one of the bricklayers is off bond (too far ahead or a little behind on the bond)–you have to adjust a few other bricks to make it fit. It takes time to do that, and it puts you even further behind than you were.

Of all the time my grouchy buddy and I worked together, I don’t think he ever once laid the closure. If he beat me to the middle, he went back to the other end and piddled while I finished up.  If I beat him, I kept going until we met, and he always seemed to time it just right so that I’d be the one to lay the last brick. Then he’d head back early to his end and get a head start on raising his line and getting ready for the next course.

Consequently, even when I got ahead, I always managed to stay behind.

“Now, friends,” I said, drawing the lesson to a conclusion, “I don’t remember the fella’s name, and I don’t remember ever runnin’ into him again down the road. I’d love to tell you that my bein’ so nice to him made a difference in him, that one day I climbed up on the scaffold and he said, ’Good morning, kid!’ with a pleasant tone to his voice, and then added, 'Come down here and get some of these donuts I brought cha.'

"And I’d love to tell you that all that day he met me way past halfway and volunteered to lay that closure brick, and that occasionally when we met he'd say things like, ‘Hey, kid, how’re the wife and kids?’ and pleasant things like that."

But it never happened.

However, I do wonder if he has mellowed some and if our being nice to him was something he appreciated deep down. You can hope, right?

But here’s what I know: In our lifetimes, you and I will meet many a grouchy man in the middle of the brick wall. When we do, I’m here to tell you that it’s best to lay the closure brick and wish him and his family well.

And sometimes you’ll even meet him two-thirds of the way down the wall because you decided to go the second mile.

“It’s called the second-mile religion,” I said, winding the story down, “and you know what else?” I said.

“What?” asked the students with intense interest.

“There’s very little traffic on the second mile,” I said, “Yes sir, very little traffic on that road.”

I paused to let it sink in, scanned the audience to see that all got the message before the customary conclusion:

“Hands please.”

And the young men and women obliged as always because that is--well, it's their way to go the second mile.

P.S. Oh, by the way, I wish I could tell you that after that story, all of my students said, “Thank you, Coach, you’re the best,” and immediately reached for their spirals and pen and got to work diligently on their “grouchy person” story. I’d like to tell you that, but here’s the truth:

You have to meet “Ladies and gentlemen” two-thirds of the way down the wall, too.