The first time I met my wife’s parents, her father asked what my folks did. I told him my dad farmed. I told him my mom worked for the county.
He asked, “Doing what?”
And I said, “Oh, she just answered phones.”
I said it like an apology. Like I was sorry to bring it up.
When she retired, they had a cake for her in the courthouse. I came late and I left early. I had a sales dinner that night with a client from Rochester. I remember the room being a lot fuller than I expected. Deputies. Firemen in their dress shirts. Nurses. Old men in seed caps. People standing out in the hallway because they couldn’t fit.
I remember thinking that was a lot of people for a retirement party for a dispatcher.
