No...Riley

 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this thing. --[Deuteronomy 24:22]

In 1974 i graduated from high school and when i turned 18 on the 18th of June i got a job at NAPCO for the summer.  Any thoughts of becoming a minister were put on hold as that was the summer before i went to college.  i remember Mother crying in the dorm room after a friend drove us there.  There i contracted college-itis and all thoughts of becoming a minister were wiped out.  i was not the popular nephew or grandchild of my aunt and grandmother on Dad's side of the family, and they were quick to point out my illness, rather than congratulate me for being the first member of the immediate family to enter college.  Even my brother resented the fact that i made dean's list during a few semesters during my freshman year.  It was a tense time when he came and visited me on campus.  When i said "Really?" every time he told me something, he'd say, "No... Riley."   

In the summer of 1975 i got a summer job at Pullman Standard in Butler, PA.  When the regular workers discovered i got the job because Dad had pull with one of the COs more resentment.  There was hell to pay.  They just couldn't wait for me to make one too many mistakes so they could suspend me without pay.  i remember coming back from lunch and being told to pull my timecard off the wall.  i shouldn't have left the area on my lunch, i was expected to eat and work at the same time apparently but no one had told me that.  i was set up and i learned that summer how petty union men could be.  i learned what Mr. Hooper meant in the movie Jaws when he talked about "this working-class hero crap."  That was the summer Dad lectured me about "categorizing"--to think about work while i was at work and no other thing.  Based on his own experience working summer jobs in the steel mill, he told me they weren't there to make friends they were there to make money.

i don't think i have any issues with categorizing now--when i am working i'm focused on work and not daydreaming about being in the community theater production or getting the chance to go see some blockbuster like Jaws was in the summer of 1975 at the local cinema.  i am doing my best to obey the Lord.  To focus on the task at hand at work.  Besides, i don't have a gift for gab these days and i usually tune out anybody who does.